Lost Boy
by notmuchmoretosay
Summary: Stale M&M's, book 3 - Season 6 & 7. "Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting." Credit to cover art goes to @andytweed on Tumblr
1. First Time Again: Clueless

_Cover image fanart by_ **andytweed** , _better resolution found_ _on Tumblr._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

In the first house on a normal late-spring afternoon, Carl and I sit alone together in the living room on an armchair that's definitely not meant to seat the both of us. Still, we manage because I'm folded up like an envelope and he's slouching across my shins, watching me write into Carol's flip-over notebook.

 _'Oliver Fabiano De Luca  
Date of birth: September 30th 1996  
Age: 15  
Fact #1. I had a brother, Patrick.  
Fact #2. I got bitten, and I lost my right hand.'_

"PT?" Carl asks.

I look up, wiggling my fingers around my pen to confirm. He puts his chin on my kneecap and pushes down to look at the page.

"Leftie's not so bad anymore, huh?"

I shape-shift into a human shrug.

 _'Fact #3. I don't like it when Carl Grimes peeks.'_

He sits back, defeated. I get a feeling I'm being rude, so I nudge under his butt with my toes. Carl doesn't much like toes; he grunts and swats them away.

I keep writing:

 _'Fact #4. I'm also really good at messing with him if he does.  
Fact #5. My left handwriting is better.'_

"Batter?" he asks.

"That's an _'e'_ ," I say.

Carl grins like he's just created a new colour. It occurs to me that that was the first thing I've said today.

"Looks like an _'a'_ to me," he mumbles. "You might have to change it to get _ting_ better."

I decide to ignore him. I write:

 _'Fact #6. I have gravity defying hair.  
Fact #7. I'm an orphan.  
Fact #8. I've killed two men, destroyed a train station of cannibals, and a little girl died in my arms.'_

"Hey," Carl says, "you don't need to write that."

"I do." I keep my eyes on Carol's notebook.

"Why?"

"So I don't forget."

There are more facts I could write, like _'My mom was Italian but she didn't like pizza.'_ or _'My dad was Jewish but I never got a bar mitzvah.'_ I could write about how many other people I've lost and I could write a list of everything that I'm afraid of, but instead I write:

 _'Fact #9. I'm a beanie kind of guy.  
Fact #10. I'm in love with my best friend.'_

Carl looks up at me. When Carl smiles his freckles look like firepower. "Me, too," he whispers.

I should say something, but I don't. I look shut the notebook and look outside. Carol is coming over, wearing a floral sweater over a pale purple blouse, black pants, and those old-people shoes I like teasing her for. She stops at the foot of the porch and talks to Sam, who is sitting on the bottom step.

 _How long's he been there?  
 **Dunno.  
** Why didn't he knock?  
 **I... I don't know.**_

"Your dad used to hit you and then he got himself killed," Carol tells him. "It happened. Now it's done. You live with it or it eats you up. Go home." She walks inside.

Carl and I shuffle into a more dignified sitting position; him taking perch on the arm of the chair. Carol is carrying a green bag full of things from the pantry. She peers out the window and watches Sam leave, head dipped and miserable. When she turns back to us, we both snap our heads away and try to look busy.

"That woman broke her damned pasta maker," she says, heading for the kitchen.

"Mrs. Neudermyer?" Carl plays along.

"Yeah." She's unpacking noodle and celery soup cans. "She only had it for a few weeks." She looks at me like she wants me to join in too. I don't. If possum Carol's still playing dead, I'm not going to act like I'm into it. So the conversation ends and Carol occupies herself with a baking dish and a nut cracker, shooing Bean away when he sniffs at her ankles—we're dog-sitting today because Nell's out on another dry run.

"Bean, go. Hey, no. Boys, can you take him upstairs or something? I gotta make supper."

Up in Carl's room, his stereo on playing some moody, depressing album I managed to put together using Deanna's old laptop, we sit on his bed. My back is against the headboard and Carl is sitting across from me against the wall, his legs slung over my lap; so we make a plus shape. Bean's taken to slotting himself under my right elbow.

I'm reading Enid's comic, _Tokyo Ghoul,_ when Carl says something to me. He taps my knee to get my attention.

"Did you hear me?"

"Err, no."

"I said, d'you get the feeling we're being kept in the dark. You know, because we're kids?" Carl pulls my hand away from my mouth; I was biting the skin around my fingers. He sighs. "You're _Olivering_ on me again."

I decide I hate that term.

"I ask, you answer," Carl goes on, voice lower; a new development that turns my stomach to pulp. "It's common courtesy."

"Okay. Give me more context and I'll give you an answer," I say, looking at my comic again. Bean seems restless and slips off the bed.

"Alright," Carl says, and points. "Michonne's katana."

"Yeah..."

"She never put it back."

"Easy." I shrug. "She wants to stay safe."

"Yeah," Carl says, "but it's like she never even put it up there in the first place." I frown at him and sit up. Carl keeps talking. "They didn't bury Pete in the community."

"We don't bury killers."

Carl gives me a very disconcerting look then.

"You know what I mean," I say. " _Bad_ killers."

"Well, what about that massive herd trapped at the bottom of the quarry out west." Thousands of them. That's why we're all still here—why Alexandria's still standing. The walkers were busy growling over there instead of eating over here. They've been like our own guard dogs, only, they don't follow any orders.

"That's what everyone is doing now," I tell him even though he already knows, "finishing the diversion wall, out there at Marshal and Redding."

Carl gets desperate.

"Look, slow down, man. Tell me the things you do know for sure, then the things you don't," I ask.

"Eugene's been stealing jello from the pantry again. I found another jar in his trash this morning."

"Why were you in Eugene's trash?"

"Oliver, that's not important. Look—I was taking out the trash, okay? Anyway, another thing I know: Gabriel wants to start learning to defend himself now; asked today while I was walking Judith."

I grimace. I heard that sometime a few weeks ago Gabriel sought out Deanna and told her that our group were a bunch of monsters that wanted to destroy this place the first chance we got. Deanna realised it wasn't true, eventually. Everyone did. Just sucks it took two men dying for that to happen.

"Something you don't know now?"

"What happened the other day in the pantry with Carter, Olivia, Francine and Tobin," he answers. "And, the night Pete died, Glenn and Nicholas were out in the woods. That was why Mikey couldn't find him before the meeting. Glenn was shot."

"He said it was an accident..."

"You believe that?"

I shake my head. "Of course not. I know it was Nicholas. That trout-faced shitshark should take a long drive off a short cliff in Aaron's car."

Carl finds that funny.

"Eric's still picking walker fingers out of its radiator," he says. "It's ugly."

" _Astoundingly ugly,_ " I say. Carl laughs. When I don't laugh, too, his hand comes up and brushes my hair along my neck. He tugs my beanie. I know he's worried about me. I hate that he's worried about me, so I move on: "Got anything else?"

"I think Abraham's drinking again." He is. "And I overheard Dad and Daryl talking about weird stuff he and Aaron saw out there. They're gonna stop recruiting." Carl takes a breath. "And... okay, this isn't really anything, but do you think Morgan'll still be mad that I shot him the last time I saw him?"

I give a look like I don't know because I don't.

Carl sighs. "Just... I think a lot of people are angry at me right now. Ron. Mikey. Even you, sometimes."

"I'm not angry at you," I say. "I'm just... angry."

He watches me. "Sorry. You've been through shit lately and I'm worried about some stupid grudges. It's just... I wish we could be more a part of everything, acting like things are alright. I mean. Things are alright. But it's not _just_ alright. It's other things, too. And it's not going to stay alright forever."

We go quiet for a minute.

"Guess you're right, Carl," I say finally. "We're clueless."

Carl accepts this, and I go back to reading my comic...

 _'I'm not the protagonist of a novel or anything...  
But...  
If, for argument's sake, you were to write a story with me in the lead role...  
It would certainly be...  
A tragedy.'_

And then, outside, someone screams.

* * *

 **Notes**

The _astoundingly ugly car_ was inspired by Talking Dead.

As always,  
Happy reading.


	2. JSS, Part 1: Goodbye

**(Easy Part and Lost Boy replies)**

 **Guest** Thank you!

 **Blood on my Machete** Thank you. Also, just, I need you to know how amazing your support has been. I adore you.

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** I. Love. You.

 **Rolo-chan** That does sound cool, I just don't want Oliver's depression to become romanticised. But I do like your ideas. Thank you! AND THANK YOU FOR TOKYO GHOUL!

 **DarthGranola** Thank you infinitely. Your support has been phenomenal.

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** Hello! Good seeing you over here! Thanks! Yeah, the story is more popular over here, which is really nice. And that site's got some horrible glitches, and I was getting cyber bullied by someone so I just had to leave.

 **RIGGSSIVAN** I've been posting the AU, that's something!

 **Guest** Ha! Yes! Thank you about the Glock. I actually went back and made the changes. So hopefully no more Glock plot holes

 **greenaardvark** Aw, thank you so much. I've been dreading it, but now it's here, and so here's the new chapter. Just... I have to not think that there's only eight episodes left this Season...

 **CodeName A.N.D.Y** I'm more excited about your _thing_ you're doing than I am about anything ever. You think I'm exaggerating? Because I'm not. And it's not sad because it's you and you are so freaking awesome! Which is also 'expected'. Because you are :D Haha thank you. I actually have a little scene thing planned for Oliver and Morgan.

* * *

 _Chipped wings, I was a broken thing  
Had a voice, had a voice but I could not sing  
You held me down  
I struggle to fly now_

 _But there's a scream inside that we all try to hide  
We hold on so tight, we cannot deny  
Eat us alive, oh it eats us alive  
Yes, there's a scream inside that we all try to hide  
We hold on so tight, but I don't wanna die, no  
I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die..._

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

 _(two weeks ago, the day Pete and Reg died...)_

* * *

Half of Alexandria was gathered downstairs in the living room after Deanna called another meeting. Subject: walkers in the quarry. Not kid's stuff, so I was in the bathroom, eves-dropping.

Oliver was across the room from me, sitting cross-legged in the bathtub Carol had drawn, with some Aloe Vera in the bubbles to 'do him good'. He was hiding behind the curtain. I rolled my eyes at him.

"I'll shut it if anyone comes."

Oliver frowned. It was hard to take him seriously when suds were in his hair and he kept moving his amp around in the water like it was a sea monster, or maybe he was hoping the Aloe would do him _enough_ good to grow it back.

Downstairs, Heath, one of Alexandria's runners who'd come back from a long run with his crew some days earlier, was speaking: "My team. We saw it earlier on. Back when we were on one of those first scouts – findin' out what was around there." He said there was a camp—"at the bottom. People there musta blocked the exits with one o' those trucks back when everything started to go bad. They didn't make it – they were all roamers. Maybe a dozen o' them."

Water sloshed behind me. Oliver was washing his hair, struggling to brush it.

"Here," I said. "Got you." He sat with his back to me, all folded up like a chair to fit against the sides of the tub. I combed his hair out until it was smooth and flat, long enough it touched his shoulders. He looked like a brown Draco Malfoy. I pushed his fringe up into a floppy mohawk.

I smiled.

Oliver didn't.

I hadn't seen him smile in a while.

"Do any PT this morning?" I asked.

His head shook.

"I know you hate it, but it helps."

Oliver was frowning _the frown_ at his amp. I sighed. I'd missed a part of the conversation downstairs. Michonne was talking about how many walkers were at the quarry, a lot, by the sounds. Then dad cut in and explained some were getting out, that any of the trucks keeping the walkers in could go off the edge any day now, and that if that happened, it would send the walkers right to us. It sounded serious. But there was no other way. Daryl would lead them away. Abraham and Sasha would take a car and ride with him. Rosita, Spencer and Holly would look-out within the walls.

"So, they're out," Rick said finally. "Who's in for the rest?"

I'd already guessed they didn't want us to volunteer—guessed that it was why Carol had run the bath too, but it wasn't until then that Oliver realised it as well. He looked furious.

Michonne volunteered, and Glenn. Noah, too. Gabriel tried but Dad shot the idea down immediately. And then Nell volunteered.

Oliver was so shocked he slipped right under the water. His butt made a loud rub noise. He sat up, cheeks red. Thing is, Nell hadn't spoken to us much. We figured she was still confused over what happened on the warehouse run and upset over Reg and Pete. We expected Dad to say no, that she was only seventeen, but he thanked her, trusted her, and I guess she decided to trust us too.

* * *

 _(now...)_

* * *

A packet of cigarettes flings from Mrs. Neudermyer's hand and her skull is split into two. I see it through my bedroom window. _I watch._ They climb over the walls, dressed in rags and dirt with cloaks over their faces and chains hung from their shoulders and waists.

Oliver sees them, too. He switches off his stereo and grabs his holster, drops it. I help him. We organise ourselves quickly. I snatch my rifle in the hallway and shut Judith in her room.

"Come-Bean," I say, halfway down the staircase when we see Carol rushing across the living room. She grabs Bean before he can get to the window.

"We saw them from upstairs," I tell her; Oliver's behind me, breathless. "They're comin' in from all over."

"You both have to stay here and keep Judith safe." Carol leaves. Rifle against my chest, I turn to Oliver, his left-hand sturdy and strong around his Glock. As the first shot goes off, he flinches. Me, too. We look at each other. Oliver's eyes are sunken and tired-looking.

"C'mon," I say.

We shut and lock every window and door in the house, collecting ourselves at the base of the staircase when we're done. Something smashes outside, something else is on fire. People are screaming. Some gunshots, but not a lot.

"Got your back," Oliver whispers.

"Got yours, too."

Then there's rattling at the back door. Bean's hackles rise, twice his normal size. I put my back to the wall opposite the door, rifle ready; Oliver on the other side. Nodding, I peek around the wall and see a shadow through the curtain. I switch walls — _it only takes one second—_ and the door opens. Enid almost walks into our guns and doesn't look happy about it.

"Hi?" she says.

Oliver blows out through his mouth. Bean jumps up Enid's front. I'm already shutting the door behind her. "Why didn't you just knock?"

"I have these," she says, presenting a set of keys. "Didn't want them to have them." Snatching them, I march into the kitchen and toss them by the cooking timer. "And I wanted to say goodbye."

"Watch the back-door," I instruct. "Tell me if you see them coming. Oliver, get the—"

"I'm not _staying,_ " Enid argues, following us into the living room.

"You're not going anywhere," I tell her. Oliver's frowning at her. I move the coffee table out of the middle of the room. "Sit down. You're helping us protect Judith." Bean's the only one who listens to me. "They're not getting inside this house. We're not gonna let them."

Reluctantly, Enid drops her backpack and sits on the floor with me, back to back. When I look up at Oliver, he's double checking all the windows and doors, heading upstairs to do the same. It's times like these that Oliver's neurotic personality gets the better of him. He'll wake up in the middle of the night to check the stove's been switched off, that all the lights are off. He'll tap his fingers so much they'll ache. Sometimes, if he's really anxious, he'll bite the skin around his fingers until they bleed.

I listen to him upstairs. He's in Judith's room.

"Did you see them?" I ask Enid.

"They're just people." She sounds tired. I can see Bean's fur clutched in her fist. "This place is too big to protect. There're too many blind spots. That's how Oliver and I were able to—"

"They got in the walls," I cut her off. "They're gonna die. _All_ of them."

I know she's sad. And I know he is, too. And so am I, but not in the same way. They're like jigsaw puzzles from different sets, him and her. I guess that's just how orphans are; always ready to lose something.

"Don't tell me goodbye," I say, thinking of all the terrible goodbye's I've ever gone through. The worst: _Goodnight, love._

Enid inhales like it hurts. "I won't."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

When I'm back downstairs, Carl and Enid are watching me. I put my amp behind my back. I was going to wrap it this morning. I wrap it now to hide the scars. Should've wrapped it.

Carl pats the floor beside him. I sit. We make a sort of triangle shape in the space between our backs. We watch the exits. Carl tries to touch my amputation but I pull it away, and then the horn goes off, so loud it could blow the house down. We don't speak. We don't move. Something's on fire. It smells like train stations and infirmaries.

I shuffle across the room and peek out the window. A man I've never seen before scurries across the decking. I duck. He has a chain around his neck, a _W_ scar on his forehead. I've seen that before. On that walker Enid and I found.

The man doesn't see me watching him, but I see him. I watch him through the curtain. I watch him leap from the porch. I watch his chase to the end of the street. I watch him yank the bike out from under his victim and drive his machete through her stomach. Her name is Óhara. She has a big brother and a black dog and she came over two days ago to deliver home-made soap that her mom made. Every limb Óhara owns is hacked off one at a time. I watch him split her open, right down the middle, all while she's still screaming, until she can't anymore because she drowns in her own blood. He dips a dirty red finger into her heart and paints a 'W' of her blood over his own scar.

I stagger back. Something touches my shoulder and I flinch. It's Carl. I know he's talking but I'm not hearing it.

 ** _It's happening._** **  
 _It's happening again._  
** _No, no, please..._  
 ** _It's here._  
 _It followed us..._**

I don't follow much for the next few minutes. Just parts: Carl holding my face, wiping my eyes, telling me not to throw up. He flattens my hand to something smooth, the coffee table. The horn is off. I start to think properly again.

Enid is looking out the window. Carl, too. I sit back, clutching Bean.

"They... They don't have guns," I say.

"Yeah," Carl replies, "yeah, that's good." Crouched by the window, they both look afraid and small, like children. It occurs to me that they are. _We_ are. And then Carl's eyes are wide. "Ron..."

"Oh no," Enid murmurs.

"What?" I barely say it before they're both crashing to the door. I follow them. Ron is across the street, between houses, running for his life. One of them is chasing him, a young-looking man with black hair and a wild face. I aim for his face but I shoot him through the leg. With a scream, he crashes to the curb and his machete flies across the street. Ron crashes past me. I aim again, my hand aching with Backward, but Carl is there already, stood over the stranger and glaring down the barrel of his rifle.

"Please, man, _please?!_ Please don't kill me, man?! _PLEASE!?_ Help me, please? _My leg!_ "

Ron almost collapses, which is what I'm thinking about when the howling man on the floor suddenly lunges and grabs Carl's leg, his free hand seizing the barrel of his rifle. . .

BANG!

. . .Carl stumbles back. He looks at the barrel of his gun like he's confused, then looks at me, realising I'd shot him. I step beside him and help him up. We look down at the stranger, the blown out hole in his jaw. " _Oughhh... gruurckk... huuulp!_ " Carl steps in front of me. He tells me, "I got it," and without another beat, puts a bullet through his forehead.

I get caught up thinking if that was my kill or his.

 _"You just never get used to it, huh?"_ Patrick tells me. _"Taking a life. Watching someone die. It gets you every time."_

Carl walks away.

"Come inside," he tells Ron. "I can keep you safe."

Ron looks at Enid standing on the porch with Bean. She looks spooked and out of breath. Ron turns to me and Carl. His lip curls. "No."

He turns and walks away.

"Ron!" Carl calls.

I run after him.

"Oliver!"

"Wait at home. I'll be back."

"Carl, come on!" Enid shouts. He does.

Blood is in the street. Windows are smashed. Alexandrians lay killed and mutilated outside of their homes. I watch dark smoke rise into the sky, _climb the thin tower of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then..._

I'm running inside Ron's garage. He'd pressed the button to shut the door on me, but I'm too fast. Bean isn't. He's locked outside. I can hear him crying, and then I have about half a moment to brace myself before Ron Anderson crashes into my side at full force. I'm flung back into the door so hard I drop my Glock.

"Ron!" I growl. "Dude, get the f—"

"STAY OUTSIDE, RON!"

He stops, like he thinks he's been caught. We both go quiet. Bad feeling. I try to tell him to be quiet, to ask if he saw anybody, but he grabs me. I block a hit with my amp, and he snatches it, slams it back and back and _back._ I scream, except Ron punches me in the chest and nothing comes out of me. I hit the floor. There's a yank on my leg and I'm dragged across the garage.

Two gunshots are fired from somewhere in the house. Ron is so furious he doesn't even hear them. He grabs a golf club.

"Get out of _my house._ "

He's raising the club over his head, brings it down —I dodge— and it clangs against the cement. Desperate, I kick him in the shin and he collapses, and then I throw myself at him. He yells at me, but I cover his mouth with his own shirt, pinning him down with a knee on either side of his chest. He fights violently. And he's stronger with two hands. He grabs me, thrashes, and then I'm on my back and his hands are closed around my throat.

"R – _Rughh!_ "

" _Get out_ of my house."

He's leaning down, hissing it in my face. I grab a fistful of his hair and yank. It hurts him so much he loses his grip. I shove him off, and then, before Ron can do anything, I grab his shoulders and slam my forehead into his face. He falls back. There's a second he spends just blinking and holding his face, and then red pours between his fingers.

I'm clutching my forehead, stumbling. I've never done that before. I had it in my head that it wouldn't hurt the person _doing_ the head-butting, but it does. _God,_ it does. The pain's so bad I think I'll black out. I collapse to my knees and retrieve my gun. I holster it, groaning and panting. I take my inhaler and cough my lungs up. Finally, I turn to Ron. He's just sitting and staring at his hands. I know Ron. I know he can lose his temper. Once we fought because he wanted me to smoke with him and I didn't want to, so he called me a pussy, and when I told him to shut up he slapped me across the face. I shoved him so hard he fell. We didn't talk for an hour. In the end, I just switched on his Xbox 360 he watched me play Red Read Redemption.

I figure the same principle stands here, too.

"Come on," I say breathlessly, "we gotta find your mom and brother. Ron."

"Screw you."

He looks like he might cry.

"You know, she didn't even tell me."

I frown.

Ron glares at me. "I read your notebook, Oliver."

He stole it? I've been using Carol's flip-book for days.

Ron scoffs, standing up. "I read all your secret little messages. How you understand each other. All the joking. Taking the piss out of me."

"No. That's not—"

"Some real chemistry there, huh... _'sport'_?"

"Ron, it's not like that."

He passes me, pushing my chest—leaves blood. I'm going to explain. I'm going to tell him that me and Enid are just friends, that I was sad and she was there for me, but then we both realise how quiet everything's become. I hear footsteps. Ron's about to call out, but I cover his mouth.

"Shut up," I say, "or your mom and brother are gonna die today."

He listens. We creep into the house and down the hallway. _Quiet._ I pull him back by his wrist before he gets too close to the kitchen. He looks at me. I push the handle of Lizzie's knife into his palm, then, once he takes it, I pull out my Glock for myself.

The screaming makes us startle.

Inside the living room, there's blood everywhere. Jessie's straddling another lady on the floor; she died a long time ago but Jessie's still striking her with a pair of hair scissors. Finally, with one final swing through the eyeball, she stops. Ron and I stare at her.

"Mom?"

She's crying. Ron drops my knife and goes to her.

"Sam," Jessie whimpers. "Please. He's upstairs. Please?"

"I'll find him," I say. I check his bedroom. Ron's—my notebook is under his bed. I keep looking. Sam isn't in the bathroom, or the airing cupboard, not even Jessie's room. I go back into his bedroom to double check. Not under the bed. Not behind the curtain, or the door. I make a full turn around in the room.

 _'I have a bolt, inside my closet. Mom put it there.'_ I try the handle. Locked from the inside. I push my ear to the shutters and hear small, shaking breaths.

"Sam..." My fingers stick with Ron's blood, when I press my hand to the closet door, leaving a red smudge on the wood. "Sam, it's me... I won't hurt you. Swear to God."

I have to ask again, but finally, the closet unlocks and eighty-five pounds of Sam Anderson clings to my torso. He cries. He's so scrawny and small that picking him up and carrying him out of his bedroom isn't difficult, even with one hand, so that's what I do.

In the landing, Sam grabs the edge of the wall and yanks. "I don't wanna go down there."

"Sam," I grunt, "we gotta..."

"No!" he sobs.

Jessie takes him for me. "Thank you," she tells me, drenched in blood. I go downstairs. Ron is waiting for me, holding the door open.

"Get out," he tells me, "and don't come back." Just as I shut the door behind me, he whispers, "You're not part of us."

"I know," I say.

 _"He's right, too,"_ my brother tells me as I make my way home. " _He's right and you know it."_

"Sure, 'cause you're right about a lot of things, huh?" I ask.

Patrick doesn't say anything else.

Somewhere nearby, I can hear barking. "Bean?" I don't see him. Bad feeling again. Something's wrong. Digressing from home, I sneaking behind houses to find him. A walker crosses my path. Her name was Stacey. There's a _W_ in her forehead now. I take her out. Across the street, a woman with a chain around her forehead is dragging Óhara's brother towards the brownstone apartments. He's called Brad, two or three years older than me, tall and bleeding—apart from me and Nell, Brad is one of Noah's best friends. He told me, one time when they were drunk Brad tried to hook up with him but Noah got him a glass of water instead.

I shoot the intruder in the back.

Brad collapses in exhaustion and I yank the chains away from his hands. The lady is dying and groaning and grimacing. She looks at me.

"You're... You're just a _boy._ "

"Yeah," I say, "I am." And then I sink Lizzie's knife through her temple. I help Brad up. He can hardly stand on his own. His mom runs outside and helps him. She tells me to come inside, too, but I think of her daughter and I say no. I say, "I have to find Bean."

I run away.

Bean he isn't barking anymore. He's whimpering. When I find him outside Mikey's house, blood drips from his mouth and chest.

"Oh no."

Mikey's front door is kicked in. A crimson trail leads all the way from the bottom of the steps into the house. A hand-print is against the frame. I go in, gun drawn, dodging and hiding and holding my breath. I see a body; one of the intruders. Canine bite-marks expose their throat. I push Lizzie's knife through their temple and go to pat Bean on the back for his work, but he runs right past me. There's more blood.

I get up, step across the room, and push the basement door open with my Glock; it scrapes across the wood. I go down. My legs are tree roots.

"You down here, man?"

I don't know why I ask it so casually. I don't know why the room is spinning. I don't know why there's so much blood, except I do. Of course I do.

"P – please."

Mikey is curled up under the pool table in a lake of his own blood.

"Please, don't hurt m – me anymore."

I cover my mouth. Mikey looks up at me. He tries to reach out, but a whole part of his intestines spill out over his lap.

"Oliver..."

I drop my gun and clamber across the floor. My hand and clothes are drenched before I even get to him. Mikey tries to pick himself up. He looks so tired. I take his hand. He's trembling so hard I can't hold it steady.

"I don't want to die."

He's crying. I am, too. I'm hurting him by moving him. I sit behind him. He sinks into my front and holds onto my fingers, grabbing at my collar with his free hand. He finds it hard to keep breathing. He'll be still for a moment and then he'll writhe and cry again. I push my arms around him and hold him together. _All of him._ His organs and his flesh. Mikey's nodding, as if to say: _Thank you thank you that helps I'm so afraid but that helps._ Bean is sitting opposite us. He'll rush out of the room and search the house, then come back and sit and cry again. Mikey just focusses on breathing. It's getting slower. He's gritting his teeth. Throwing his head back. Pushing his face against me.

"I don't want to die, Oliver."

 ** _He's suffering.  
_** _I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it._

Mikey groans, bringing another wave of agony under some terrible control again.

"I... I thought... y...you were one of th...them. I'm glad it's you."

It's hard to understand him. His face is tucked into the crook of my neck. He splutters up blood across my collarbones, down my shirt.

"Sorry."

I just shake my head.

 ** _Paying the high cost of living.  
Blood for breath._**

"Quiet one," Mikey says. He even laughs, only it's a sob. He groans. Agony shakes him so hard I can't hold him still. His hands come up against the pool table, smearing the edge. "Crap. _Oh crap it hurts_ ," he gasps. "M... my dad's gonna kill me. Getting... Getting blood on his s...stupid pool table."

I laugh, only I'm crying, and then I kiss him. I whisper, "I'm sorry," into his fringe. Mikey nods like he understands, but he doesn't. Not this. "I'm sorry," I sob. Mikey looks up at me and I kiss him again. His blood runs down my neck and soaks into my shirt. "I'm so sorry, Mikey."

"Me, too."

I'm fast enough that Mikey only screams for a second until it's over.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Bird Set Free_ by Sia

Okay, I'm not going to lie. I genuinely feel like a monster after writing that.

I kind of loved that once upon a time Mikey promised Oliver he wouldn't kiss him as a joke and in the end it was Oliver who kissed him. And I loved that it was totally a loving kiss, too. But not like a _love_ loving kiss. Just a friend love kiss. Just a _oh God I really don't want you to die!_ kind of loving kiss. But it's kind of the same anyway. Sorta :)

I'M WELL AWARE THAT MIKEY MIGHT BE ALIVE... fuck.

So there's this amazing human being called **CodeName A.N.D.Y** who has an account over on FictionPress under the name **Andy.T** and their works are absolutely diamond. So really, check them out. They're so great. _Laughter for Liam –_ I highly recommend reading to anybody, ever, in the universe. Ps. The abrupt end of this chapter was inspired by it, so thank you infinitely, Andy!

As always,  
Happy reading.


	3. JSS, Part 2: It Follows Us

**DarthGranola** Haha, gosh, I'm sorry!

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** I'M SORRY!

 **Andy.T** GOD I'M SORRY FOR KILLING MIKEY, OKAY? GOD! Yup. Oliver's gonna be pretty fucked after that... Ah, Bean is a good boy, huh? Ron only saw the stuff he wrote to Enid and Sam and whatever else, but not the stuff he and Carl destroyed, but yeah, don't worry about that x How is Nell, you ask? :) read on, my friend x

 **Biter two** Thank you infinitely. Wow, actually my friend read the first load of chapters before actually watching the show and when she watched the part where Patrick was fangirling over Daryl, she turned to me and was like, "Wait, this... where is Oliver?"

 **Anna Katharyn** (っ◕‿◕)っ

 **The walking shadow** FOur DAyS!? Holy shit. Yes, unfortunately for Mikey, he was never getting out of the friend zone. Nell is asexual. I actually totally love Ron, and Enid, and all of the _A kids_ , they're just so great, but yeah, Ron's gotta get his shit together xD Gabriel can just go lay an egg. Oh, wow you're awesome! Thank you!

 **FRED** DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORK, ilysm. Btw, poddles and dolphins WERE in Titanic. Also, yes, I know you. You wrote in English and Italian, so duh, you're Oliver. Pfft. xD

 **SkyeWater5** Aw, thank you! Don't cry!

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

The gunshots and the screaming had stopped a long time ago, but now the eerie quiet is worse.

"Why'd you let him go?"

Enid asks it so suddenly I startle. We're sitting back-to-back again.

"Why'd you let him go?" she repeats.

"It was his choice."

She's quiet.

"He'll be okay," I say. "He's always okay."

"He was stupid."

"He went to save _your_ boyfriend."

Again, quiet.

"What's wrong with you, Enid?" I ask. "You show up here, threaten to leave without telling anyone."

"I told you guys."

"Nell? _Ron?_ "

Quiet, quiet, quiet.

"Nell's your best friend," I gripe. "She volunteered to help."

When Enid replies, her voice is croaky like she's running out of it. "She trusts you. _We_ trust you."

I'm frowning at the floor.

"We've been here too long," she whispers. "You can't stay in one place for too long."

"I know that," I tell her. "But you can't just..."

I stop. She isn't paying attention. No. She is. She's paying so much attention it like it's hurting her.

"Oliver and I've known you for two months," I say. "And you've known Mikey and Ron for almost a year. Nell for longer. You can't just – how can you be okay with just... getting up and leaving?"

"I've known Nell from the start."

"You didn't answer my question."

She doesn't say anything.

"Fine..." I say. "Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me how you met."

"Does it matter?"

" _Yes,_ " I growl. "Don't use that bullcrap. _You_ brought it up. I'm not playing this _game_ anymore, Enid."

"It's not a game."

"It is though," I argue. "Sure, there's that part of you that doesn't like talking to anybody, keeping us out of the loop, but there's also that other part of you that _likes_ it."

I can imagine her scowl.

"Being mysterious," I go on. "Being _Elusive Enid._ "

She's getting angry.

"And that is okay," I sigh. "It is. It's just... not very helpful sometimes."

" _Screw_ you."

"No," I answer. "Screw _you_. I lost people, too. And it sucks and it's scary and it makes you not want to try anymore. It took me thinking Oliver was dead before I told him that I loved him."

"You're kids."

"Doesn't matter," I retort. "I was still afraid. But what I did – what you're doing _now._ That isn't an option. Not anymore. You can't just _do that_. So tell me." I get this feeling like I'm finally one step ahead of her, so I add: "I'm not asking what happened. I'm just asking how you became friends."

Enid's teeth are grinding. I can hear them.

"We wound up at the same Evac Centre, with our families," she says. "Then, after the military started moving people around, we ended up in the same safe-zone, too. We didn't know each other, but we got to knowing each other's faces."

"Then what happened?"

"What always happens."

"Walkers?"

Her quiet's enough confirmation. "It was weird, we kept running into each other out there, on the road. The first time, after the shelter, Dad was sleeping in the back and Mom was giving me driving lessons, but she was falling asleep, too, so I was just driving, headed North." Her head dips. "I drove right past them."

"Who, Nell and Bean?"

"Her sister and dad, too."

"What about her mom – oh."

"Walkers got her," Enid says. "As I drove past, they started running after the car, begging me to stop. I just couldn't risk it..."

I think of the boy outside the prison. "Whoa," he said to me. "Don't shoot!" He was wearing a beanie. I've never once told Oliver that. I never once told him that sometimes, when his back was turned, he made me think of the boy and I wanted to die. "Drop the weapon, son," Hershel told him. And the boy said back, "Sure. Here. Take it..."

I just couldn't risk it either...

"Next time her Dad wasn't there," Enid says. "Just her, Drippy and Bean. Mom and Dad asked them if they wanted to stay with us, so they did. Nell looked so angry. I knew why. In the night they stole half our supplies, cut our tires, and ran away. Next morning, while my parents were figuring out what to do, I was keeping watch. I saw her. Nell. She was alone. Hurt. She had nothing on her, even her clothes were..." Enid winces so hard I jolt to it. "She just stopped. Right there in the road. I called for Mom and Dad. They were right there. But then the walkers came."

She sniffs.

"I lost her after that," Enid says. "I lost _everything_ after that."

I want to touch her shoulder, tell her, "I'm sorry," but I know I won't.

"It's like we're just _meant_ to stay close. However far we run we're always attached, like on a string. And one of us loses something every time we see each other again and it's just always been that way. I hate her, but she's everything to me."

Something outside smashes. We wait in quiet, and nothing else happens.

"Look, I know it doesn't make any sense," Enid says.

"When did you find each other again?"

"A few weeks after. I got chased by walkers, hid. She was hiding, too. I didn't even recognise her at first. Her hair was all cut and she wore different clothes, like a boy. We didn't talk. We just waited. They walkers weren't going away, and, I guess we knew we were gonna die. And we knew what we did to each other. We had this huge secret that only we knew about, and we had all this bad inside of us, and we knew it wasn't going away, but... we weren't alone."

"What happened? How'd you make it?"

"Bean," Enid replies. "Showed up outa nowhere. _Herded_ them away."

"Then you found this place?"

Enid shakes her head. "Nell wanted to go back and get him. I wanted to leave. Didn't argue. We just, left each other. Again. But I waited for her. And she found me under the Lorton sign the next day, both of them. And after that we just... stuck together. Even Bean didn't run off anymore. Then we found Alexandria. And, I'm still waiting for what it is we're supposed to lose this time."

I think about patterns. I think about them like Oliver would. Oliver would be weighing out the statistical probability that the way Enid and Nell's friendship works is solely on finding each other at random moments in time to make a chain-reaction of losing things.

It doesn't make sense.

"I don't hate being her friend," Enid says. "I don't hate the fact that I know her. I just..."

"You just hate that you care," I whisper. "You hate that you love her. You hate that you love all of us. And worst of all you hate that there's nothing you can do about it."

I have her now. I know it. She knows it, too, because she's crying.

"I have to go."

"Enid..."

She's getting up and I'm following her across the room.

"It's how it works," she argues. She's smiling, like she finds how miserable she is funny. "You don't get attached," she tells me. "You don't get invested. I let myself do that here, and she saw it and she tried to warn me but I didn't listen because I thought we were safe. And now we're in here hiding while everybody's out there dying."

"That's not true! It's _not_."

She takes a breath and brushes her hair behind her ears. Her eyes were on the floor but now she looks right at me. . .

"I found her in Neverland before. And maybe I'll find her again. But either way I'm not coming back this time."

I grab her sleeve.

" _Don't_ tell us goodbye, Enid." I'm out of breath, shaking my head. "Oliver. He won't – he _can't_ cope with another one."

"I'm not saying goodbye. I'm just telling you the truth."

We glare at each other.

"They're coming back, Enid."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _Shadows settle on the place that you left  
Our minds are troubled by the emptiness  
Destroy the middle, it's a waste of time  
From there perfect start to the finish line_

 _And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones  
'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs  
Setting fire to our insides for fun  
Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong  
The lovers that went wrong_

 _We are the reckless  
We are the wild youth  
Casing visions of our futures  
One day we'll reveal the truth  
That one will die before he gets there..._

I think there's something inside of me. Something bad. Evil. No matter how hard I try to distract myself, it's growing. It has been for a long time but now it's... I don't know. I'm so scared. I'm so, so scared. I...

I don't want to be me anymore.

I hear a sniff somewhere and look up. Carol is sitting on the steps of the first house. A stolen trench coat, jeans, boots and a bandanna as her attire now. One, small, blood, _'W'_ is drawn on her forehead. In her hands, a packet of cigarettes sits pinched between her thumb and index, bloody and trembling. I know why. I know what she's been doing. I can see it; the possum. It's woken up. I can feel it in me, too. I look into her eyes and the silver shine in them is faded.

They're _rusting._

Bean pushes his muzzle under her hands but she ignores him. Neither of us say anything while I take a seat directly behind her on the next step up. I lean into her, wrap my arms around her shoulders, close my eyes. Against my cheek, her shoulder-blade feels cold and coarse. When I open my eyes, I catch something red and small marked on the banister.

 _A_

Carol looks at the man Carl and I killed earlier across the street, then over at Mrs. Neudermyer, who's still laying on her lawn with a cavern where her skull should be. Carol rubs her forehead, the unlit cigarette poking out between her fingers. The mark doesn't go away so she uses her sleeve. She stops when she sees the banister, too.

 _A Block.  
Train cart A.  
A in blood on the church wall.  
Alexandria._

I press my face into her spine and she holds onto my arm and hand and cries. She cries so hard that all I can do is hold her tighter. The wet of her tears drip against my forearms and her kisses plant like seeds over my wrist. She hiccups into my skin and scars again and again and again.

 _I know, Carol,_ I think to her. _It follows us._

But this time Carol doesn't think anything back to me.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

It's over. The intruders are either dead or gone. Judith is safe. I can see Oliver and Carol sitting on the porch, but I leave them alone, put down my rifle, and step away from the window.

"Enid?"

I go into the living room.

"Enid?"

Then the back door. I see the piece of paper at the foot of it and stare, like it might not really be there. _Please don't be there..._ But it is. It's real and smooth and cold against my fingertips. It's a note.

 _'just survive somehow'_

The cooking timer rings so I go into the kitchen and stop it. With gloves, I take the baking dish out of the oven. It's steaming and smells like paprika while I set it on the island and switch everything off.

Oliver comes back inside.

His clothes are covered in blood. Carol isn't with him anymore, and when I look to the window I see her walking away down the street. Oliver shuts the front door. His head is dipped low and to the side. Bean sits close at his heels, looking hunched and sad. I don't think I've ever seen a dog look sad. Blood is drying along his shoulder and leg.

"Oliver?"

Slowly, he looks up at me. I'm off my stool, rushing towards him. His forehead is bruises. He's got two black eyes and sore scratches all along his throat. I get that feeling I get right before I start to cry.

"Ron."

Oliver shrugs. "I think I broke his nose," he says. I take his cheeks and carefully run my thumbs between his eyebrows. The bruise there is swollen and throbbing. He winces when I touch a particularly sore part of his left eyebrow.

"You look like shit," I whisper.

Oliver almost laughs, but he starts crying instead. We're hugging. Except he's not really hugging me, he's collapsing into me, with bawled fists into shoulder-blades and buried noses into collarbones and hard exhales and even harder inhales. He doesn't make a sound. But I can feel his screams. They're in his chest and he wrestles them down. His whole body is shaking with them. But after long enough he is calm again, breath slow. Me, too. Even after a day like this, there's nothing that can't be made bearable again with a hug like this from Oliver De Luca.

He speaks first, croaking it: "Judy?"

"Safe."

"Enid?"

I pull back to look at him. He reads my face like a book, because then he's searching the whole house, and then he's out of the door, running across the street, Bean galloping after him. I follow them, only I walk, and when I get to Enid and Nell's house the front door is already open. I touch the key, swallowing the rock in my throat.

After a few minutes of searching the house, I find Oliver on the back porch. He's sitting in silence on the step, facing the wall, arms folded over his knees and glaring, and when I get a better view of his bruised-up face, I see the blankness in it.

"Oliver..."

"I want to wait for her. Nell. So she's not alone."

"Okay."

"You should go back to the house," he says. "Judy's alone."

"Oliver."

"I'm alright. I... I have to be here when she gets home."

I step over to him, slowly and carefully. He doesn't look away from the wall. I kneel down in front of him and hold his cheeks in my hands. He grips my wrist and closes his eyes, and then I kiss him. Oliver's kiss is shaking. I whisper, "Okay," as I pull away, and Oliver doesn't say anything.

Sometimes, there's this place inside Oliver's head where nobody can reach him. Not even me. And he's there now. I can see it. And I know that all I can do was wait for him to come back to me.

"We'll be at home, Oliver."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones  
'Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone  
We're setting fire to our insides for fun  
Collecting pictures from a flood that wrecked our hom  
It was a flood that wrecked this home_

 _And you caused it..._

It's been hours. Bean hasn't left my side. I want to go after her, Enid. I want to climb over that wall and find her, bring her back home before Nell even—

"Guys!"

I stand up. Bean runs off. I, on the other hand, stay where I am. I can't see anything from here but I can hear. . .

"Scott, hang in there."

"Heath, you got hold of him?"

"Yeah. Noah, grab this!"

"Open the door!"

"Denise, his leg. He was shot."

"Bring him in."

I can't hear anymore because they're inside the clinic. I can't hear a lot of things. I can't hear Glenn or Daryl or Nell or Sasha or Abraham or Nicholas or David or Sturgess or Adrian. I feel sick. I feel like I'm drowning. I dull it by tapping my fingers and staring at the wall again.

 ** _Just wait, Oliver. They'll be back. They'll know what to do.  
_** _What if they're not?  
 **They will. They have to.**_  
 _Okay.  
_ **Stop _staring at it.  
_** _I can't.  
 **Look away.  
** I don't think I can.  
 **Then**_ —

"You gonna run away, too?"

I startle. "Oh. Nell."

She purses her lips. I wipe my eyes, shake my head.

"Uh, no. Just thinking."

"You alright?"

"Yeah," I answer. . . "No."

"Me neither."

She takes a seat beside me. We stare at the wall together.

"I know she's gone," she says. I can't see much of her face but I know there's blood there, her clothes and hands, too. Must've run into trouble out there. I look back to the wall. "I had another nightmare last night. Enid was there. Calmed me down."

"You told me about your nightmare this morning," I say.

She shakes her head. "It wasn't a nightmare."

"You didn't tell me what happened."

"I didn't remember," she says. "But now I do."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she answers. "I saw cities burn. Felt water turn to poison, and fire ate up the whole sky. People were crying and starving, hurting."

"Sounds terrible," I mumble, even though it sounds more like recent history. "How come it wasn't a nightmare?"

"There were no walkers."

I close my eyes.

"And today," she adds softly. "There were... _a lot..._ of walkers."

I shut my eyes. Mikey fills them. I can still hear his screams, his begs, how hard I had to struggle and how hard he tried to stop me.

"Contemplating the ramifications," Nell says then, cutting through my thoughts like the blade I drove through the back of Mikey's head. I wince. "It's a _real_ bitch, huh?"

In my hand, my cheeks and forehead feel cold and blotchy and dirty. The bruises hurt. Blood crusts against my skin. My eyes are sore and swollen.

"What're you talking about?"

"Well," Nell sighs, "out there, you see stuff like this – _worse_ than this. It doesn't affect you half as much as it does when you're in here. So when something comes along to hurt you again, it hurts you. Bad."

 _Why does it hurt?  
Why?  
Why does it still hurt?_

"We're human," Nell shrugs. "It's how it works. Out there, you don't have time to stop and look at the flowers. In here? That's all we do anymore. I guess when the flowers turn to blood, it hits us harder – scares us more."

"I hate it," I say suddenly, and before I can control myself my chest heaves and I start crying again. "I don't want to do it anymore. I can't."

"Me neither."

I break down in crying for a while.

"Enid," I whimper. "She came to say goodbye and we didn't let her and now she's gone away."

Nell keeps staring ahead. But she closes her eyes and nods. "You sound like Pan," she tells me. I frown. Sometimes Nell talks about Peter so much I get worried she believes in him. "He said, _Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting._ "

"But you're not saying goodbye," I whisper. "You're not going away. You're not forgetting."

Nell's going to say something, but someone else speaks over her.

"Oliver?"

I startle and look around. "Noah. Hey. Hey, man."

Bean is with him. Noah sits on my other side. He's been crying. He _is_ crying. The kind of crying you wouldn't even noticed if only his cheeks were dry. I'm frowning. There are these puzzle pieces. I'm trying to fit them together but I'm not sure I want to. Those intruders. They didn't only have an impact on this place. Noah told me about the day Tyreese died. How, on their way out of Shirewilt they'd found a truck full of mutilated walkers. They'd all been chopped into torsos and heads, like Óhara, and they all bore cut in 'W's on their foreheads.

They killed Noah's family. Murdered and slaughtered just like here.

"I think they call themselves Wolves."

I frown and look at him.

" _Wolves not far,_ " he says.

"We saw that once, written on a wall."

Noah nods and rubs his eyes. They're wet again. I don't want to ask why. "Outside that convenient store," he says, referring to a run we went on a few weeks ago. "I know – saw it, too."

"I'm sorry about what happened to your family, Noah."

When the first set of hiccups take over, they did so like a wave, overpowering him. I look away for his sake, and Noah cries. Cries like he hasn't since the day he found his family. His hands are clamped over his eyes, then his shoulders, gripping so hard it looks painful.

"O-Oliver..." He's sobbing so hard I hardly realise it's my own name. "I gotta tell you something." Noah holds his mouth, like he can't bear to talk anymore. "Nell... she... We were holed up in a pet store. When we got out, there were... She..."

I don't want him to keep talking. I want to be as far away from this conversation as possible, so I'm looking at Nell. She's staring at the ground. More of those puzzle pieces are fitting but I don't want them to anymore, at all. I want them to stop. They're scaring me.

"I'm sorry," Noah says, choking on it. "There were too many."

"Nell?"

She looks at me. I shudder. Her face is torn with bites and scratches. Her eyebrow hangs, a gaping hole where her right eyeball used to be. Her mouth, torn, teeth and tongue exposed.

"Oliver, I'm so sorry," Noah cries. "She hurt her ankle. Before. I... I tried. But she fell. She fell right through my hands. She told us to run. Th-there was nothing I could do."

I'm stood now. I turn and look at both of them. They're staring at me only one isn't even here.

"N—Nell."

" _I ran out of fairy dust, Ollie."_

I'm walking away.

"Oliver," Noah says, sobbing worse. "Please."

"It's okay," I say. "Ijusthavetogohomenow."

"I'm sorry."

Living inside of my own body has always been a difficult experience for me, but the reasons for this have always changed over time. Now, it's because I'm not a part of myself. I think I'm on auto-pilot. _Homehomehomehome._ That's all I can think about. But it doesn't help. When I stumble up my house's steps, the hole in my chest doesn't go away. It swallows me. It pries me open with the same teeth that tore her apart.

 _I can't breathe._

Somebody is in front of me. Rosita? Yes, Rosita. She asks what's wrong and I tell her I'm alright and then I'm in the backyard and I'm hunched in the grass against the wall with my hand and amp covering my ears. Sweat clumps my hair together, makes it stick to my face. I'm drenched. My heartbeat is in my throat. Blocking it.

 _I can't breathe._

Then Carl is here.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey."

I hear him through my skin. He's trying to pull me to stand. He looks scared, like I might've grown a forked tail and sprouted devil horns, or maybe I've shrunk and sprouted claws and scales, or maybe it's just because I can't seem to look away from the wall, or that I can't stop talking, the same sentence over and over. . .

"I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I can't breathe."

"Shh. Shh," Carl tries. "You're alright."

But I keep saying it. And I feel the sting in my scalp when my fingers tighten into my hair. I can't tell up from down.

"I can't breathe, Ican'tbreatheIcan'tbreathe."

 _Well I've lost it all, I'm just a silhouette  
A lifeless face that you'll soon forget  
My eyes are damp from the words you left  
Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest  
Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest_

 _And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one  
'Cause most of us are bitter over someone_

 _And you caused it..._

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Youth_ by Daughter.

Super special thank you to **The Misfit Writer** for giving me that awesome interview about the story and making those lovely Caliver virtual space pages. Thank you!

 **Explanation as to why** **I killed her** **:** I wanted Oliver to have a dog.

KIDDING!

 **Real answer:** You can just call Nell's existence in this story irrelevant, if you want, but that is not my personal opinion. To me, Nell was there to teach Ollie that although extraordinary things are possible, they still won't turn out the way you imagined. So, the reason why I killed her? Like Oliver said: Nell is just a girl. Just a person. And like Enid said: Even he knows people die.

RIP Penelope Rostenkowski

As always,  
Happy reading : _)_


	4. Now, Part 1: Not Until You Know

**BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** ARGHHHH!

 **Rolo-chan** Ah, thank you, and I will. Yeah, Nell's a lot more her in the main story. I'm obsessed with Peter Pan. I've been reading the story and I feel like Oliver would relate to him so much. Yep, big plans ahead. I'm totally ignoring the horrible nag of anxiety that if Carl gets shot next episode he'll fall forward and crush Judith though, like Lori did in the comic... so, nope, Judy will be fine. She'll sit on Bean's back and they'll gallop off into the sunset together!

 **the walking shadow** Thank you! Yeah, both of them are gonna be pretty crushed by this.

 **Biter two** Thank you. So much :,) Well, actually it kind of just happened. I actually forgot to mention her coming back with the others and then when I went back to edit I was like, oh... that's why... and then I just kind of went with it...

 **Guest** Thank you! And I'm not sure. I've been writing loads of future scenes, and it's just kind of the scene in the laundry room that I'm stuck on. I don't think I'm actually going to write Beth as gay in it. I think I'm just going to have them be madly close, and Sis madly in love with her, and have things angsty and complicated, and like they'd do anything for each other, and make a story out of that. I'm not sure. Plus, Grady isn't exactly the most romantic place (IGNORE THE FACT THAT OLIVER AND CARL FOOLED AROUND IN THE SIXTH FLOOR SUPPLY CLOSET xD) but the story is kind of coming together because of the unrequited love so I'm not sure. It's interesting :)

 **DarthGranola** Thank you!

 **AwkwardlyMe** Oliver! Omg hello! haha that's so cool! Oh, wow, you're so special. And that's totally beautiful. Thank you. I'd absolutely love to talk to you over messenger! Thank you for your kind words!

* * *

 _I'm a firm believer in experimentation. And so, a part of this chapter will be written in past tense and third person._

 _CW: Mild sexual themes near the end._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _Curse the things that made me sad for so long  
Yeah, it hurts to think that they can still go on  
I'm happy now  
Are you happy now?_

 _Don't chicken out, it's all good  
You're allowed to be what you could_

 _Punch drunk, dumb struck, pot luck happy happy..._

I'm thinking through my people list.

Nell – dead.  
Mikey – dead.  
Enid – just surviving somehow.  
Carl – holding me together.  
Judith – good.  
Carol – rusting.  
Sam – terrified.  
Ron – furious.  
Noah – sad.  
Eugene – afraid.  
Gabriel – also afraid.  
Tara – losing her laughter.  
Maggie – devastated.  
Glenn – out there.  
Daryl – out there as well.  
Sasha – out there.  
Abraham – out there.  
Michonne – covered in blood, and I can't tell who it belongs to.  
Rosita – covered in blood, too, but it belongs to Holly.

Rick –

"OPEN THE GATES!"

* * *

 **~3rd Person/Past Tense~**

* * *

A truck blocking the quarry exit de-roaded in a land slide and the herd got out, so the dry run turned into not so dry run. Rick came back a while after the others. Thing is, he was followed, and now Alexandria was surrounded.

"You can hear it," Rick called out to the crowd. They could hear it. Walkers, an entire herd of them outside.

Carl was holding Oliver's hand. Oliver hadn't said much. He washed, got changed, and now Carl was sticking by his side, Enid's note tucked away in his breast pocket.

"Some of you saw it," Rick went on, walking through the crowd. "They got back here. Half o' them. Still enough to surround us twenty deep. Look I know you're scared. You haven't seen anything like this. You haven't been through anything like this. But we're safe, for now. The panel the truck hit seems intact, we reinforced it just in case. Either way, the wall's gonna hold together. Can you?"

Oliver looked up.

"The others," Rick said, "they're gonna be back."

"They're gonna be back," Rosita agreed.

"Daryl, Abraham, Sasha. They have vehicles," Rick explained. "They're gonna lead them away jus' like the others. And Glenn and Nicholas're gonna walk through the front gate after. They know what they're doin'. And we know what we need to do. We keep noise to a minimum. Pull our blinds at night – even better, keep the lights out. Try to make this place as quiet as a graveyard, see if they move on."

"This place is a graveyard," Francine admitted.

"The quarry broke open," Aaron stepped forward. "And those walkers were heading this way. All of them. The plan that Rick put into place stopped that from happening. He got half of them away." Aaron started to fidget. "I was, out there, recruiting with Daryl... I wanted to – try to get into a cannery and scavenge. Daryl wanted to keep looking for people... We did what I wanted. And we wound up in a trap, set by those people, and I lost my pack."

Realisation swept across the crowd.

"They musta followed our tracks," Aaron confessed. "Those people who attacked us. They found their way back here because of me."

"There'll be more to talk about," Rick said, sparing him.

"Deanna?" Tobin said. They all looked too, saw the woman walking away, stiff and broken like a worn rag-doll. "Deanna..." She didn't stop. Rick walked away too, told them to keep safe, to try to help around the place as much as they could, and everyone started to go on their way.

Carol stepped over to the boys. She nodded to Noah as he headed home, then looked at Oliver. His skin was dirty. His eyes were bagged. His face, scarred and bruised. She squeezed his shoulders and kissed his forehead and said, "I'm gonna head back to the house to look after Judith. You gonna come with?"

"Gotta find Bean," he said.

"Okay," Carol said.

"Home soon," Carl reassured. Carol nodded, kissed the scar on Oliver's right temple, and then she was gone.

The growls went on. The wall rattled.

"Oliver?" Carl said. "Let's go." They did, and found Bean sitting on the girl's porch. It took three whistles and a quiet, " _Move..._ " for him to finally relent and come with them. Bean trailed behind on the walk home, heading along the wall by the lake.

At one point, Oliver stopped. Carl followed where he was looking and spotted three women over at the wall painting on the beams:

 ** _IN OUR MEMORY_**

 ** _DENISH  
JEFFERY  
CARTER  
HOLLY  
SHELLY  
RICHARDS  
HELEN  
STACY  
MICHAEL  
BARRY_**

 ** _BOBBY  
NELL  
SAMANTHA  
PARK  
CHARLYNE  
ÓHARA  
DAVID  
STURGESS  
ADRIAN  
NICHOLAS  
GL_**

"You're putting names up there?"

Deja vu reminded Carl of all those months ago when he'd confronted the kids at the prison with a similar question.

"We're paying our respects," a woman said. "Remembering them." She had brown, short, curly hair, and wore a long, washed-out flannel shirt. She went back to finishing the last few letters on Glenn's name. Oliver has a look on his face like he doesn't believe her. Carl touched his shoulder.

"Oliver..."

"No." He took a step forward. "You don't know they're dead."

They turned to him. "It's in their memory," Óhara's mom said. Her brunette hair was half up, and she looked exhausted. "And ours..."

"But you don't know!" Oliver shouted.

"Whoa... hey..." Aaron walked over from the other side of the street. He was calm and frowning. "What's going on?"

"They're lying," Oliver gasped. "They're lying. We don't know they're dead."

"Oliver," Carl tried.

"We don't!"

Aaron tried to take his shoulder but Oliver didn't let him. He went to the wall and rubbed some of words away. Aaron grabbed him. Oliver let him, because he'd taken his amp. Gently, Aaron led him across the street. Carl followed, thinking about the name 'Michael' on the wall.

They stopped by the lake. Oliver was glaring at the ground, breathing hard, pacing. Aaron said his next sentence like it was the hardest thing he'd ever said in his life.

"Nell is dead."

"I know!" Oliver yelled. He remembered his manners and struggled to use them. His clutched the bruise on his face for a second. "I-I know."

"Then why're..."

"We don't know about Nicholas and Glenn."

"Oliver, they didn't come back. Michonne said..."

"I know what Michonne said," Oliver argued. "I know how it looks. I do. But you don't _know_. Not until you know. They aren't gone until they're _gone_. They're not dead... until they're _dead_."

Aaron looked out over the lake. Maggie was assembling a metal rod with some kind of fixture tied on each end. She walked off without noticing at them.

"Nobody gets left behind," Oliver said, his eyes wet and blood-shot.

Aaron just nodded and let it go.

"Oliver," he said. "Bean's kinda on his own now." He scratched between the dog's ears. "I'd take him, but uh, Eric's allergic. Would you look out for him? He doesn't have to be yours, just, you know, help look out for him."

Oliver nodded.

"His kibble and whatever else'll be at the girl's house. I'll ask someone to collect it later."

"That's okay," Carl said. "We'll do it." Aaron gave him a weary look, but nodded and told them to look out for each other.

They didn't stay long at the girls' house. They collected Bean's things, and back home, they gave Bean a wash and set up his things. Bean didn't touch his water or kibble. Didn't even move from the front door. He just sat there and waited, mouthing at the corner of the shoe-rack until Carol yelled at him for it.

Finally, Bean looked so miserable that Oliver simply opened the door and let him leave.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Oliver was in Judith's room. Carl was glad for some time to himself. Noah was outside and Rosita was around the community somewhere, and Carol was baking in the kitchen. It had become apparent to Carl that after today, everybody wasn't really ready to come out of themselves yet. Not even he was. He was thinking of that wolf he shot. Even after this long, killing made Carl want to crawl right out of himself. He kept having to remind himself of what Michonne had told him outside Terminus: _You're not a monster._

Carl had had enough of being inside his own head, so he crossed the room to the kitchen. He caught Carol spying on Oliver and Judith through the baby monitor.

"He'll hate you for that."

Carol jumped, sighed, then put it down. Carl looked too. Oliver was in the cot with Judith, curled up with his long, gangly legs dangling over the rails and Judith fast asleep on his chest. He had his stereo on again—they could hear it from both the monitor and from upstairs. It was that moody, depressing album; now playing some song about being happy. Oliver was also reading his notebook. Had been reading all day. Carl couldn't see why Oliver found it so fascinating.

"Here." Carol held out Bean's bowl, something steaming inside.

"Erm..."

"Well I'm not waiting for you to eat it yourself," she said. "Go take it to him, please?"

Carl took the bowl. It smelt of oregano. "Smells good."

"Seriously, Carl. Don't eat it."

Bean didn't eat the food. He just laid on the girld' porch, a blanket over his shoulders, and turned his nose up. Defeated, Carl left the bowl with Bean and went back to Oliver's. Carol said he'd gone next door. Carl went to find him. The house was quiet, with his dad out re-enforcing the wall and everyone else busy.

Carl went upstairs. His bedroom was dim and smelt muggy and stale. Oliver was sitting on his bed, using a flashlight to read. Carl drew the curtains. Oliver flinched and disappeared under the blankets.

"Did Bean eat?" he asked.

"No," Carl said. He climbed under the bedsheets, too. Carl laid his head on Oliver's chest and crossed their legs at the shins. "How'd you know I went to give Bean the food?"

"Carol told me. I could smell the oregano, so I went and asked."

"What was it, that day when Ron had it in his hair? You said it smelled of..."

" _Nonno,_ " Oliver answered, and the corners of his mouth twitched up. Carl inhaled. "And we had that game of truth or dare."

"And you had seven minutes in heaven with Mikey."

That twitch in Oliver's lips faded.

"His name was on the wall," Carl said. "Saw it earlier."

Oliver nodded and turned his flashlight off.

"You knew that already though, huh?"

Oliver shut his notebook and sat up, pushing the blankets back. Carl sat up, too.

"Does Ron know Enid left yet?" Oliver asked.

"I don't know," Carl answered, aware Oliver had changed the subject.

"We should tell him."

"Later."

"Did Enid tell you anything?"

"Yeah," Carl said, and decided to tell him how she and Nell met, how they both helped ruin each other's lives. "She's gone because she's afraid of getting hurt."

There was quiet for a while.

"She said she found Nell in Neverland," Carl explained finally. "And that maybe she'll find her there again. But, either way she's not coming back this time... She doesn't even know what happened."

"Wait." Oliver said suddenly. "Say that again?"

"Erm. She... doesn't know what happened? With Nell—"

"No. No, before that."

"She found her in Neverland?" Carl said. "And that maybe she'll find her there again, but... erm, Oliver?"

He was flipping through pages. Carl caught a glimpse of the handwriting, but didn't recognise it as Oliver's messy leftie writing. Oliver noticed him looking and snatched the notebook out of view. Carl was frowning at him.

"You're reading her notebook?"

"I found it open on her bed."

Carl grimaced.

"She didn't write it like a diary. I wouldn't read it if it was a diary. I swear."

"And that makes it okay?"

" _No._ No, it's not okay. But..."

"Oliver..."

"There's stuff in here," Oliver said. "Come on, man, don't look at me like that." He frowned and presented a page. "Look..."

"I don't want to."

" _Please,_ Carl."

He sighed, dropping his eyes to the paper. A map was drawn across the page. Places were labelled like _'Train Track'_ and _'The Creek'_ and _'Ollie's House'_.

"The left page is torn out."

Oliver nodded. "Look at the top."

Carl read out: " _ER LAND_?"

"No, no, it's the last half of Neverland."

"So?"

"She and Enid must've called Lorton Neverland, you know, like an inside joke?"

"Yeah," Carl said. "I got that. But..."

"She'll find her in Neverland," Oliver quoted, then shook the book in front of Carl. Carl drew his neck back and scowled. "I found this on Nell's bed," Oliver added, "when we went to get Bean's things. Nell never leaves it out. It's either hidden or in her pocket."

"So?"

"So..." Oliver said, "Enid got to it before me. Tore the page out because it had Nell's house on it, then left it for Nell to find and get the clue and go after her again – find her in Neverland." Oliver swallowed, his jaw was clenching. "You said, when Nell found her in Lorton, that she'd already got Bean at home, so Enid never saw Nell's house. She needed the page so she wouldn't get lost."

Carl heard the zeal in Oliver's tone, but it was a worn and desperate type of zeal.

"That's where Enid's going? To wait for her?"

Oliver nodded.

"But Enid doesn't want to be found. She said maybe. She said that whenever they found each other it was by accident." Carl could feel Oliver's pulse racing through the bed. "Oliver, you gotta calm down before you get carried—"

"I wanna go home."

Carl looked at him. He said, "No."

Oliver grimaced, looking like he hadn't expected this.

" _'One day...'_ " he said cruelly. "That's what you said to me. Remember? At the windmill, the night before we got here? You said, _'One day. We'll go together. You and me. We'll go home and put your parents down.'_ "

" _Wake up,_ Oliver!" Carl yelled, swallowing. "I get it, okay? You're sad, and you're angry, and you're mourning. But what you're talking about is going to get somebody killed."

"Enid is gone," Oliver said. The zeal had gone now. It was just apathy. "And Nell would've known where to find her. And I know where to find Nell."

Carl grabbed him. "Nell is _dead!_ "

Oliver struggled against him. "It's for them both!"

"No!" Carl shouted. Oliver gave up fighting. "You're not going out there."

"You can't stop me."

"I'll tell Dad."

"I'll get out..." Oliver said it calmly. "I going to go and get Enid."

"Really?" Carl asked. "Because it sounds to me like you're chasing a ghost."

"I _know_ that Nell's dead," Oliver said. "I do. And... I _am_ accepting it. But I have to do this."

After a long time of glaring that turned into staring that turned into watching that turned into nodding, finally, Carl spoke: "Tell me your plan, Oliver."

* * *

A little before it got dark, Carl went to find Bean again. On the walk back, he could hear the shoves and growls behind the walls. On the street to home, Carl saw Ron sitting on the grass outside his house, stabbing at the earth with his knife.

"Hey."

Ron looked up. Carl saw the bruise on the centre of his face. His nose didn't look broken, thankfully. When Carl didn't go away, Ron yanked his blade out of the ground and twirled it in his hand, then drove it back down.

"You okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Ron replied flatly. Sighing, Carl went over to him. Bean pulled towards Ron, but Carl kept him back by his collar.

"I gotta talk to you. About Oliver and Enid."

"What, they run away with each other again?"

Carl tensed up. "You know about that?"

Ron grimaced, but didn't say anything. Carl sighed.

"Look, he told me you attacked him."

"He was in my house."

"He saved you."

"He was in my house," Ron repeated. "Did he tell you about how he almost knocked me out with his face?"

"Because you tried to strangle him."

"Because _he was in my house_."

Carl knew this wasn't going the way it needed to, so he tried to change subject: "Did Enid talk to you before she left?"

"Haven't seen her. Not since I saw her with you two."

"We think she went over the wall, before..." Carl explained. Bean whined in protest when Carl had to pull him back, "before the herd came, and, now she's trapped out there."

Ron double took at him. He started shaking his head. "What makes you think she isn't dead?"

"Come on, man..."

Ron squinted up at him Petely, teeth bared into a squint, sheathing his blade. He got up and walked away. This time, Bean didn't try to follow him.

"Look," Carl tried again, "we're gonna go find her, we just need your help." He threw his thumb over his shoulder to the wall. "We're gonna wait for—"

"I'm not helping you, Carl."

"This isn't for me," Carl said. "It's for Enid. Your friend."

"My _girlfriend_ ," Ron argued, his hands were moving so fast he was swatting, "or I mean, 'cause she _was_ anyway, right?"

"So you wanna just leave her out there?"

" _What_ is your problem, you faggot?"

Carl stepped back. Ron never called him that. He even might've looked guilty for a second. But he shook it off and jammed a finger into Carl's chest. Carl pushed Ron's hand away, his face hard and stony. Bean was up now, watching them.

"Ron..."

Ron pushed him. Carl got angry, but Bean growled, which scared him.

"God, don't you see?" Ron said. "Don't you understand what they've been doing?"

"He told me," Carl explained.

"What?" Ron asked. "That they've been screwing behind our backs? That they make fun of us? And you're still _with_ him?!"

"That's not what happ—"

"You follow him around like a _sheep_."

"Shut up," Carl hissed. "You don't know what you're talking about."

" _No,_ " Ron said. " _You_ don't, Carl. You have no idea how much damage you've done! Everything you touch turns to _shit!_ " Bean growled at both of them. Ron ignored him. "It's alright for you, isn't it?! You think you can just come in, wreck my family, kill my dad? Why do you get to be happy, you faggot?"

"Call me that again."

Ron must have been intimidated, or maybe he was just too sad, because he deflated. "I _told_ her to stop goin' over the wall. I _told_ her there's bad people out there. And that it is _stupid_ , and dangerous."

"Not if you know what you're doing."

"Well I'm not gonna let you go," Ron said. Carl saw the dark circles under his eyes. He saw the way the collar of his hoodie was discoloured and how parts of his hair was starting to mat. He felt sorry for him, so he turned on his heel and left Ron alone.

"Carl," Ron insisted. "Carl, you guys aren't goin' out there." He caught the edge of Carl's sleeve, but Carl span around and shoved him.

"Back _off_!"

Bean barked, and it distracted Carl long enough that he didn't anticipate Ron's palm jutting out against his chest. Carl staggered. He fought back, shoving and grabbing and yanking. Carl had never been in a real fight before. Not with fists. It wasn't like wrestling with Oliver. He didn't know what to do with his hands and legs so he kind of just did whatever came to him. Ron wasn't much more skilled. But Ron was angry, and older, and his dad had just died, and his girlfriend had just left him without saying goodbye. Only the thing is, Carl was angrier, and stronger, and he'd killed his mom a long time ago, and his boyfriend was breaking and there was nothing he could do about it... and all of that anger came out of Carl, and Ron was shoved down so hard that the air was knocked out of his chest.

He lay on his back, coughing and wheezing. Bean was barking at them both now. Carl ignored it. He walked away, and Bean followed him.

"I'll tell your dad!" Ron groaned. "He'll go out there to find you and then other people will too and then somebody's gonna die."

Carl stopped.

"Huh?" Ron asked. Carl turned to him. Their eyes met. Ron looked exhausted, like he'd just ran a marathon, like just holding his head up was hard. He said, "You saved my life and now I'm saving yours."

Carl's head shook, and without another word, he and Bean walked away.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

"Ron knows you and Enid snuck out."

"I know."

"Oh. How?"

"He stole my notebook. When we got rid of those notes about Carol stealing the guns, we didn't get rid of the conversation I had with Enid. He read it, total misunderstanding. How do you know he knows?"

"Just told me," I say. "He also called me a faggot, and we had a fight outside his house."

Oliver's eyes widen, but he doesn't say anything for a moment. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah."

"And Ron?"

I nod. "I just kinda... pushed him."

Bean leaves the room. He goes downstairs. We can hear him licking at his water bowl, but we don't hear him eat anything. I turn back to Oliver and watch him stare at his ceiling.

"What happened to you today, Oliver?"

He just shrugs. Sometimes, there's this place in his head where nobody can reach him, and the best anyone can do is just wait for him to come out. I know this. It's just never taken him this long before.

"Ron told me something else," I whisper.

Oliver looks away from the space between him and the ceiling to look at me.

"If we go out there," I go on, "Dad'll come to find us, and others will too, and then somebody's gonna die. That's what Ron said. He's right."

Oliver's frowning. He doesn't seem angry.

"We can't go out there, Oliver."

"We won't."

I blink. "That's alright with you?"

"Yeah."

I'm so taken aback that I don't even register that he's kissing me until he's climbing onto my lap. I'm kissing him back, but I stop. "Wait..."

"It's alright."

"...Oliver."

He just kisses me again, pulling me to sit up.

"It's alright," he mutters. "It's how it works." He's unbuttoning my jeans, kissing my throat. When he tries to touch me, I snatch his hand wrist to stop him. He looks up at me, lost.

"Please..."

I've never said that before—in this kind of circumstance, at least. He doesn't look entirely sure of what I mean by it. I press our foreheads and shut my eyes.

"I can hear your heartbeat," he whispers to me.

"Yours, too," I swallow.

"Boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom."

"Are you sure," I ask. "Please, tell me you're sure."

"Your dad'll go after you," Oliver says, and brushes a part of my fringe away from my eyelashes with his hand, then starts doing other things with his hand...

"Tell me... Tell me _you're_ sure—you're sure that's alright with you."

Oliver kisses me. "I'm sure."

After, I ask him, "Are you alright?" and Oliver just whispers, "Close your eyes, Carl." I hold him. Oliver kisses my forehead, and for the first time in days I see him smile. I believe his smile. I hold his hand and mess with his fingertips to make him smile even more, and he does. He even laughs. I'm thinking I'm helping to make him feel alright again. I'm thinking that making Oliver feel alright again is still possible.

Only, when I wake up a little while later, Oliver is gone, and it is not alright.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Blush_ by Wolf Alice.

So, I'm thinking about writing a Fear the Walking Dead FanFic with a gender fluid protagonist? I mean, I will anyway, but thoughts?

Happy reading.


	5. Now, Part 2: The Boy and the Dog

**BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** No. 'Fraid not :( and thanks!

 **Anna Katharyn** Ah, thank you. I hope it isn't anti-climactic!

 **the walking shadow** Thank youuu and yes Bean and Carl could be such great friends. They just butt heads all the time.

 **DarthGranola** thank you. I was trying to think how I would do it. But it was so adorably awkward, so I just stuck to that theme. Like two angry puppies.

 **AwkwardlyMeOli** Thank you. You're awesome, you know that? Because you are and I adore you. Thank you thank you for lots more than just reviewing augh you're awesome!

 **the pimp fred** When I read that I just started singing the "Oh, I wasn't expecting that..." song xD

 **ANDTTWEEDYOULEGEND** Your Etch-A Sketch hates you. Comment a heart if you got the weird noises at night and the unbearable Aussie heat I emailed you.

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _Here I go_

 _No, I can't be around you anymore_

 _And I'm falling, I'm falling  
I'm bringing you underground_

 _So just close your eyes and I'll close mine  
Honey, close your eyes, it just takes time  
And we'll be alright, we'll be alright_

 _Cause I'm such a total zombie  
And you're gold, honey  
I wish I would have been told  
Only a fool would want me..._

* * *

The sun is going to set soon.

I wrote it all down; everything I have to do:

 _Step 1. Get down there.  
Step 2. Go through.  
Step 3. Get out.  
Step 4. Sneak past the herd.  
Step 5. Find a car._

Glenn gave me a crash course talk about how to drive while we were on a run once; there's probably not all that much else to it other than putting my foot down and steering.

 _Step 6. Drive to Lorton.  
Step 7. Find Enid.  
Step 8. Go back home._

 _"Which one, dude?"_

"Screw off, Pat."

Carl was right. Rick would go after him if he came with me. But he won't come after me. Nobody will because I'm not his son. I'm not Carol's. I'm not anybody's. I'm just some kid. They've had to make worse choices before.

Bean is following me. I tell him to screw off too, but he doesn't know that command. He's also got his attention elsewhere now: Jessie, standing up on Betsy and David's porch. Betsy's dead, growling. I squint because sometimes I see things; squinting so hard the bruise on my face hurts. She cut her wrists. David, her husband, died today on the run. Jessie puts her down.

Barbara screams and hugs herself. I ignore her. I get walking, hearing Jessie talking: "I used to not wanna see the way things are... It's not that I couldn't. It's that I... I didn't want to. But this is what life looks like now. We have to see it. We have to _fight_ it. If we don't fight, we die."

"Oliver?" Denise looks spooked when I turn and look at her. "It's been a few days, uh... do... do you want to come and do rehabilitation exercises now?"

I shake my head.

"Is everything alright?"

 _I think my blood is turning to mud,_ I tell her in my head, wishing she could hear. _I think my reflection is trying to kill me. I'm chasing a ghost because too many of them won't leave me alone. I'm going mad, and it's scaring me, but it's easier that way._

"Oliver?"

"Hm."

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah."

"What're you doing?"

"Walking... him." I point at Bean.

Denise is still watching me while I walk away, but she doesn't follow me. I slip away to where Nell marked the sewer grid in her notebook. She'd marked every sneak-spot, even the updated ones since my people got here. Next to the map-sewer, there is a message: _See three pages forward..._

Three pages on is a map of the underground sewer system—as much of it as Enid was been able to tell her, at least. I didn't tell Carl about this plan. Our original plan was to diverge the herd at the wall by hanging walkie talkies with torches over two parts, then jump down and run for it.

This plan is simpler and safer, for him.

I unclasp the grid, yank it up, and set it aside. I check nobody's watching, then look down into the sewer. I gulp. What I see? Nothing. That doesn't mean my brain doesn't still see _It_ down there, lurking around in the sewers like in the book. _"We float, Ollie, and when you're down here with me, you'll float, too!"_ I shiver.

I read _It_ back at the prison, gave me nightmares for weeks. _It_ manifests itself into anything _It's_ prey is afraid of—fear salts the meat, or something terrible like that. I imagine _It_ as the Devil, drooling and decayed and _hungry_. As soon as I put my feet over the edge, _It_ will grab me and drag me down to Hell. I don't even know if I believe in Hell or the Devil, but it doesn't mean I'm not afraid of them.

 _"It's gonna be dark soon,"_ Patrick tells me. _"You'll need to get out fast. When you lose light down there you're dead."_

"Thanks," I gripe, not putting my legs over yet. I snatch my flashlight and point it down into the sewer. For a second before the light shines, I'm terrified I really will see _It_ , grinning and ready to unzip my guts, but the sewer is empty and wet and not full of shapeshifting monsters, so I put my legs over the edge.

 _"Hope your flashlight doesn't run out of juice."_

"I've got batteries."

 _"And how're you gonna change them with one hand in the darker than dark down there?"_

Again, I look down. I get this image in my head of a zebra foal drinking from a watering hole, a dark, incoming shape moving towards it under the surface, and in a blink, there is nothing but a splash and ripples in the water.

"I changed the batteries already," I say, breath shaking. "They'll last for hours. According to the map I'll be out in a few minutes."

Bean whimpers. I glare at him.

" _You're_ the one who followed me."

He bristles, upset.

"Are you coming or not?"

He doesn't budge. He's looking into the sewer and I take that as a yes, so, with slightly awkward manoeuvring, I manage to get Bean to climb onto my back. Nell taught him this trick so that she could do things like this without holding onto him. His nails dig into my shoulders and hips, resting snug into the curve of my backpack. Ignoring discomfort, I trust him enough to climb down into the sewer, linking my arm around the ladder while I pull the grid over again.

At the bottom, Bean drops with a splash. The cement is squishy and slimy under my boots, and step one is done.

I look around, heart pounding, eyes adjusting to what's beyond the lines of light from the evening above us. I need a hand, so I clip my flashlight to my backpack strap—something Carol sewed for me. I take out Nell's notebook, hold it up to the light: take the second right, then left, then... follow it until I get to the junction.

Dripping water and the slosh of boots and paws through muck is the only noise that follows us through. No growling. My flashlight shows the first parts of a long, dark, wet, oval tunnel. Bean keeps looking up at me, like he's not sure he likes this.

"C'mon, man. Let's go..."

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

I find Dad and Ron up on the guard booth.

"Dad!"

They both look around at me.

"Carl, keep it down."

"Dad, he's gone."

He's climbing down. "What's wrong?"

"Ican'tfindhim." I'm out of breath. "Iwaswithhimbeforebuthe'sgoneandIdon'tknowwhattodo. Dad, please!" He's holding my shoulders, telling me to calm down. "Dad, he's gone!"

"What? Who–"

"Oliver. Ican'tfindhim. I think he's gone after Enid."

" _What?_ "

"Dad, please?!"

He's grimacing. "When did you last see him?"

"I'm not sure. A while ago. He left while I was asleep. All his stuff's gone."

"It's okay, we'll find him." Dad snatches his Python from Ron; he'd looked like he'd been giving him a shooting lesson. "Ron, get someone to keep watch..."

I haven't caught my breath by the time Dad is running away from us. My hands are on my knees.

"Sucks, doesn't it?" Ron asks me.

I look up at him, and then I walk away. When I get home, Dad isn't here. Michonne is, but I don't stick around to explain while I rush out and go next door, finding Dad, Carol, Judith, Noah, Rosita and Eugene all here. Dad's asking them all when they last saw Oliver. Michonne comes in behind me. Dad's already grabbing my shoulders.

"Did he talk to you about this?"

I stare at him, nod. "I didn't know he'd go without me. Dad, I'm sorry."

"God _dammit._ "

"I'm sorry!"

"I know. I know," he says. "Ron told me. Said Oliver and Enid go over the wall with each other sometimes. D'you think they woulda gone together?"

"No," I answer. "No, Oliver's gone after her _because_ she ran away."

"Okay," Dad says. "Did he have a plan?"

"We did," I say. "We were gonna go over the wall. Use torches and walkies to separate the herd. But we were gonna wait for it to get dark. He was gonna volunteer to go on watch and then I was gonna meet him."

"How do you know he hasn't done that?"

"He took the torches but the walkies are still here. I-I checked. Bean's gone, too."

"Dammit, Carl! You woulda gotten yourself killed!"

"Dad."

"I... It's gonna be alright. We're gonna find him. You need to stay here and look after your sister."

"I can—"

"I'll go," Carol says over me.

"Me, too," Noah.

"We'll go together," Dad answers.

"How are you gonna go out there?" Eugene asks. "If your boy's right and Oliver's been gone for a while, odds are he's made it over the wall, at least. Going after him with our walls surrounded twenty deep ain't helping your chances of survival, let alone his, if he ain't dead alr—"

"Shut up, Eugene!" Rosita barks.

"Dad, we have to go after him."

"Not you."

"Dad..."

Tara suddenly bursts through the door, Denise behind her.

"Ron just told Tobin to go on watch 'cause..." Tara grimaces. "Oh, you know already."

"I saw him," Denise blurts, "it musta been right before. Oh, God. He had his backpack. Nell's dog with him."

"And you didn't come to warn us?!" Dad accuses.

"I didn't think," Denise says. "Betsy killed herself. I was... distracted."

"How long ago?"

"Hour? Maybe less."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Carol hisses at her. "He's a child."

"I... I'm sorry." Denise looks like she might cry. Tara rubs her arm, giving Carol a regarding glance.

"Dad, please?"

"Eugene's right," he tells me, holding my face like when Oliver was bleeding out on that hospital bed. "We can't go out there like this. It's too dangerous."

"No."

"Carl."

 _If it was me..._

"You'd have gone after me," I murmur, "he told me that. Oliver said it. He said he was alright with it. He promised me. He knew he was gonna go alone."

Dad looks confused.

"Hey. Maggie's gone too," Rosita says, coming in the back door—I hadn't even noticed she'd left. "And Olivia says there're things missing from the armoury."

"That's good, right?" Michonne asks.

"Means they coulda gone together?" Carol agrees, rubbing Judith's back.

"Yeah, yeah," Dad says.

"Dad..."

"Carl," he says, "we can't do anything but wait."

I walk away from him, storming upstairs and slamming my door closed. It occurs to me that packing a backpack proves difficult when your hands are shaking. But I manage. I'll steal extra ammo and supplies from Olivia's later. For now, I have to—

"Carl?"

Desperately, I cram my pack under my bed. I'm sitting on my pillow, so I yank it out from under me just as Dad walks in.

"Hey," he says, crossing the room. He pulls my desk chair over to sit in front of me. He looks at me. I look at the door, wondering if he'll take the hint and leave through it. He doesn't. "Just, wanted to check on you."

"I'm fine."

He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"What, Dad?"

"I know you," he says. "And I need you _not_ to do anythin' stupid."

"I won't."

"Carl."

"I _won't_." I watch him, and then I lie back on my bed and frown at the ceiling.

"You're gonna look after Judith for the rest of the day," he says. I almost snap my head up, but I catch myself and nod.

"Alright."

I feel a pat on my shoe. "G'on downstairs."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

Soaked in sewer water up to our knees and every surface we touch coating us with more sludge and grime, very meter we walk, the more I want to turn back. But I don't. A part of me wonders if I ever will...

 _"This is what she was talking about, isn't it?"_ Patrick asks. _"You care and there's nothing you can do about it except leave."_

"I'm not leaving... n...not for very long."

 _"You are not safe. That's what Rick said, right?"_

"That's why I need to do this."

It isn't so hard to see in this area. Pocket-holes leading up to the drains are letting in small bursts of light. Shadows from my torch make me jump and stare and wait for _It_ to crawl out from hibernation, teeth bared and hungry. I remember to breathe.

"I need to find her. Even if she's dead. I need to know."

 _"So this isn't about going home?"_

"Would you screw off?!"

Bean and I find the junction. The map says the way we need to go is sealed by a door that you have to unwind with a crankset to open. But finding it now, the hatch is wide open. Two walkers lay just outside, sunk under the sewer water and dead. They've been down here for a while. One walker's whole chest and shoulder has been pulled apart, rotten and soft. When I accidentally step on a wrist, my sneaker sinks right through. But the odd thing is, I notice the scuff marks and water splashes _aren't_ dry yet... so whatever happened here happened recently.

 _What if it was those people? Those... Wolves?  
 **Don't think about it.  
** They could still be down here, too.  
 **You're almost there.**_

We follow the tunnel. Get through. Get through. Get through. At a T-junction, I finally hear something, voices, and I freeze to the spot.

"No! It's _over_!" Maggie? I can hear walkers too. Bashing against metal. My head spins. Bean stays by my side, hackles up. "I'll burn his last picture of me. Because I said I wasn't gonna need it anymore. Because I was never gonna be away from him again."

I follow her voice, peeking around a corner to see her and Aaron at the end of the passage, standing before the exit gate, walkers outside cutting through the sunlight. My chest sinks. The growling fills my ears like the sewer water in my boots.

"I'm pregnant," Maggie tells Aaron." "He didn't want me to go out there and I said yes, and if I woulda gone—if I was with him, maybe I coulda helped him." Her voice is high and thick and shaking. "I don't know if he's alive. He would've shown me by now—that's what Michonne said."

I holster my gun and hug myself.

"I just wanted to see his face. I can't... I don't get to know what will happen. I don't get to know why it happened. What I did right or wrong. Not now. I have to live with that and you do, too."

I must make some noise because they hear me.

"Hello? Who's there?" Maggie and Aaron round the corner, aiming their weapons. "Oliver?!" Maggie drops her weapon and rushes up to me. "Oliver, what are you doing here?"

"I... I can't be here. I have to go home."

"Oliver, shh. You're okay..." Maggie has tears and murky water streaking down her face. She tries to reach out to me, but I move away, tripping over Bean who lets out a yelp.

"Oliver," Aaron takes my arm, pulling me from the grey-water. "Oliver, you're okay."

"I gotta go home – you don't understand. I gotta..."

"Okay, we'll go home."

"No, I have to find them. I have to put them down—you don't understand."

Maggie wraps her arms around me, and then I'm crying. I'm not sure of everything I do or everything that happens. I wail into someone else's chest. I apologise over and over again, and Maggie is holding me, and I don't get to decide what will happen in the future. I don't get to save Enid or stop Nell from becoming a story. I don't get to go home and put my parents down, or atone for leaving them behind. I'll never know why they all had to die, or what I did right or wrong, or how I could've saved any of them. Not now. And I have to accept that and live with it.

And that's the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

By sundown, I'm beyond restless; tugging my sleeves with my teeth, counting down until the wall clock ticks over to 8:00PM... Five. Four. Three. Two...

"Can you take her?"

Eugene frowns. "I've been told not to."

"Why?"

"Because _you're_ supposed to be looking after her," he says, reading over one of my finished crossword puzzles. "Way your dad sees things is that your affliction to your sister overrides your affliction to your boyfriend."

"Asshole," I say, except Eugene hears, "But I can't take her with me."

"Why not?"

"Because I need to go... to the bathroom."

Eugene relents when I hop on one foot. When I go upstairs, I'm sure I overhear Eugene telling Judith, "Feels like Holly all over again..."

I'm quick in grabbing my backpack and climbing out of the landing window, and then I'm dropping to the backyard. I round the house as quietly as I can, crossing the street in the shadows. I hear them before I see them. It's Aaron talking about Eric and Deanna, and Maggie thanking him, and then I hear them tell Oliver he needs to wash when he gets inside and even though he doesn't speak back, and even though I see him walking right towards me, I don't quite take it in. I just watch all four of them, dog included.

They see me.

I turn on my heel and walk away.

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

After a long and miserable shower, Rick and Carol spend almost the whole evening reprimanding me. They pace before me and tell me how stupid I was, how I could've died, and I bite back saying it wouldn't have mattered, that they aren't my parents. When they're done, Rick leaves for work.

Carol watches me across the room.

"Oliver?"

I don't look at her, but I nod.

"You haven't talked about what happened," she says.

"Neither have you."

Sometimes it's hard talking to her, and others, we either read each other like a book. I've torn out some pages on her, and... I think she has on me, too. But now she's trying to hard and I can't stand it.

Outside, I watch Tara and Denise talking. I don't know Denise well. She cauterised my arm, that's sort of all I think of when I see her. It's odd, seeing her do normal human things, like walking down a street and carry around books. She and Tara kiss, and then they go next door together.

"Oliver..."

I look at Carol. She's at the front door.

"Come outside."

I do.

"I'm not gonna stand back while – oh, Bean!" He slips between her legs and runs down the street. Carol groans, but chooses not to run after him. "Dammit."

"He wants to go home," I say. "What?"

"Stop."

I glare at the floor.

"You want me to tell you what I did today?" Carol's pacing up and down the porch. _You're not playing possum properly,_ I think. _I can see you, and you're small and scared and angry and alone...just like me._ "Will that make it easier for you?" she goes on. "Make you realise you don't have to run away?"

"I didn't run away."

"But you're hurting."

I don't say anything, just push my back against the panel wall and dig his heels into the wood. I grip my right arm and squeeze.

"This is how it starts," Carol says. "You hurt and then you run. And every time it gets harder and harder to come back."

A beetle on the deck crawls towards me, almost makes it under the chair, but I squash it under my shoe.

"Oliver." I look up at her. "I know," she says, "you saw me go through it."

"I. Didn't. Run. Away."

Carol thinks for a second. "Erin. She was my friend and I killed her today. Put a knife through the back of her head because she was dying and I couldn't help her. And it still hurt."

I just frown at the squashed beetle.

"Oliver," Carol whispers. She keeps saying my name like that, like she isn't sure I _am_ anymore. "You don't bury yourself like this. You have to let yourself feel it."

"Why?" I shrug. "I'm fighting it. Like you always say."

"Please?"

 _Please._ I hate that word. For something said so much, it's never listened to. Not when I said it to that claimer. Not when Carol and I left that Termite for the walkers. Not even Mikey, when he begged me not to kill him.

"Oliver... tell me what happened?"

I glance at her. I must looks wrecked.

"I don't remember a lot of it," I explain. "It was hard. Doing it with one hand. I had to hold him down and get to the back of his head at the same time. And once he realised what I was doing, he was screaming and crying and trying to stop me. But he was dying. I had to do it. So I did do it. I put him down."

My chest hurts like I've just pulled out a hangnail. When Carol tries to hug me, I step away and shake my head.

"Oliver..."

"Don't. I... I did what I had to do. It's how it works."

Just then we realise Morgan is watching us from the porch next door, only for a few seconds before disappearing inside.

"You won't say his name," Carol whispers over the faint growling past the walls. "You won't because it hurts too much to."

"Mikey..." I swallow, grit my teeth, shrug. "Michael Lloyals. What difference does it make, he's dead now."

"...Somebody else's slide show."

I frown. She frowns back.

"This isn't you, Oliver."

She reaches out and touches my arm.

"This isn't who you are. You're not this."

 _What? A murderer? A monster?  
Because, yes, Carol. _"I am."

She shakes her head, like she's giving up.

"We all change," I say. "That's what you told Lizzie; she told me. We all change and that's how it is now."

"Yes," she says, meaning it. "But that doesn't mean you have to do it alone."

"Why?" I bite. "You do."

Her expression drops and I know I'm hurting her feelings.

"I noticed, Carol. I noticed that you're trying not to get to close to us—to me! And I accepted it. I accepted it for you! And I thought it would help. But it didn't. It never helped. So I'm making it easy for you.

You don't have force yourself to care. I'm done pretending. I'm done kidding myself. I'm not happy here, and you...

You are _not_ my family."

It hurts worse out of my head, but I let it stay there. Carol stares at me. I know she's never going to forgive me. I tell myself, _That's good. That'll make it hurt less._ But it still hurts. It hurts so bad I want to die.

Somebody clears their throat on the side walk. Carol looks around, her breath shaking as she swallows. It's Spencer. His hands are in his pockets. I'm not sure why but I put my hands in my pockets, too.

"Spencer?" Carol says. "Hey."

"Hey, so, did a dog just run me over or am I still drunk?"

"Excuse me?"

"I'm kidding," he says to her, even though he does look pretty unstable. "But I did see Bean a second ago."

"Yeah, sorry," Carol says when I don't. "He's not adjusting very well here." I notice the look she gives me as she says that.

"Yeah," Spencer says. "I'm sorry about Nell."

Carol nods, says, "Thanks, for what you did today in the guard tower."

Spencer purses his lips and dips his head. Today, when the truck drove into the wall and set off the horn, Spencer was who shot the driver. If he hadn't the gates would've been flattened and all of us would be dead.

"You've got watch soon, right?" he asks her. Carol nods, rubs her mouth. "Want me to take your shift? I feel kinda useless at the moment so I figured I could make someone's night easier."

"Thank you."

He nods and leaves. I decide, too, to stand up and walk away, but Carol touches my arm, gently. In my head, my hand grows back and I hold her tightly until I'm not hurting anymore. But outside my head I'm just standing beside her not saying a word. She lets me go.

Upstairs, in my bedroom, Noah is crying. He wipes his face while I cross the room and struggle to pull the window up. He helps me. The growling is loud this side of Alexandria. I climb out. Noah puts a dictionary in the gap so that it doesn't shut.

"Hey," he says last second, nodding like I've said something. "Be careful."

* * *

Carl noticed me sitting on the roof from his sister's bedroom. He set up the rocking chair next to the window, didn't open it, but simply turned and faced me as he fed his little sister formula. It's probably weird, watching each other like this for this long. I'm cold and shivering, listening to the growling, my back against the wall and left hand inside my empty right sleeve for warmth.

Finally, I raise my hand and spell out the words:

'YOU CAN HATE ME I HATE ME TOO'

Carl visibly sighs. He gets up and comes to the window, careful not to wake Judith on his shoulder. He opens the window. Finally, he says, "I don't hate you. I just hate that you can be such a dick sometimes."

I exhale slowly, nodding.

"Everything's gonna be okay, Oliver."

I know I'm going to cry again, so I keep my head down and away, nodding again.

"Go to sleep," he instructs. "I'll be over in the morning."

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Total Zombie_ by Day Wave.

I SHIP TARNISE SO FUCKING MUCH.

Why does Bean remind me of Em so much? (Em's Oliver's little brother in the AU - super adorable)

Also, check out Quinn! It's my new FearTWD fanfic :D

As always,  
Happy reading.


	6. Heads Up, Part 1: This Moment

**BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** Yes, me, too :(

 **Anna Katharyn** thank you, hope this one helps. I think I curled up into myself and squealed! But I don't remember much. I just sort of came to with my dog burrowing into the tiny gab between my face and my arms because somehow I'd found myself on the floor... but aaaaaanyway!

 **ANDYISBOSS** Yeah I was so torn on whether or not to let him get away with it. If he had made it out I'm pretty sure he would have found Enid and followed the Enid/Glen arc. But I thought Enid needed that time on her own with Glenn for her character. Yeah, Oliver'll be okay. One day. aughh killing dogs is not okay.

 **DarthGranola** Yeah, he's not in a good place rn. And yeah, a Carl to the rescue was totally what I thought people would expect. But I'm basically gonna try and not do anything that anybody expects as much as possible without making it shit so how am I doin'?

 **Natsumo Fujoshit** A week? a wEEK? How!? HOw?! That's like 700,000 words! How did you do it?! And thank you so much! Yeah, often feel like I should be worried for how much I enjoy breaking my ocs...

* * *

 _CW: some sexual stuff in this one, sorry._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _'The moment will come when kids can just be kids again.  
_ _But this is not that moment.'_

It's early. Still dark. Everybody's asleep. I'm on the roof again, reading Nell's notebook. Two pages, that's what I've limited myself to every day now. There are only so many pages, after all. I've read my two pages already, so I'm reading them again.

 _'There was this moment. It came along in the shortest and strangest circumstance. Peter returned from Neverland and Wendy remembered how to fly again, and they danced the sun back into the sky together.'_

I think she's taking about the night she came to my window, dancing together in the empty house. I didn't know that it would be our last time flying together. I don't think you ever do.

I hear something other than the walkers, look up and watch my window slide open. Carl climbs out. He sneaks across the roof. He takes a seat to my left, like he always does now. The morning dew and grit sticks to my palm. It's a long time before he talks.

"The walls are bleeding."

"Yeah..."

"Have you eaten yet?" he asks. I shrug. "I don't know what your shrugs mean today," he says, which I figure is an odd thing to say, like maybe Carl thinks I have a daily shrugging language and today he just isn't fluent in it.

"I tried earlier," I explain. "To eat."

"You yacked? Again?"

I hate talking about this.

"Oliver, I already told you, I don't know what your shrugs mean today."

"It wasn't a lot," I confess, "it was hardly anything, really."

He sighs. "You said it wasn't happening so bad anymore."

I scowl at the walkers. A gust suddenly blows through Alexandria, throwing his hair around his face. Mine too. We left our hats inside. In the wind I smell the rot. It ripples Carl's shirt and I want to reach out and hold it down, keep it from getting him—want so bad my eyes water.

I sit back, bring my knees up and tuck my arms around my chest, clutching Nell's notebook.

"Don't."

I frown at him. "What?"

"Don't go away like that."

 _Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting..._

Carl looks at me and whispers my name and that is all it takes for me to take his hand. His palm is warm. I kiss his knuckle. I start biting at his thumbnail. I stop when Carl pulls a face at me for it, apologising. Carl lets it go. Still, I still say it again...

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine," he laughs. "It'll grow back, man."

"No," I whisper. "I'm really sorry. For what did." And then I'm at that point of talking that's only just not crying. "I just... I thought it would be easier. I thought it wouldn't hurt so bad if it was just me. You wouldn't be in danger and Rick wouldn't let you follow me and Carol would know it was best not to. I thought I could just... not matter.

I thought I could go find her and bring her back.

I wanted to know. I wanted to go home, and really _know_."

"Know what?"

I glare at my knees. "I don't even know. I mean, I just... I want it all not to be my fault. I want them not to be angry at me for what I did."

"Your parents?"

I shrug.

"What happened wasn't your fault," Carl says. "Oliver, they... they'd be so proud of you."

I shut my eyes.

"I'm so sorry you lost them."

That gets me. Messes me up. But it feels good to cry over it.

"I'm sorry that the only family you have is the family you meet along the way," Carl goes on, like he knows all the right words to say to me. "But it doesn't make us count any less. You know that. You've said so yourself. When did you lose that? What happened that made you not even believe it anymore?"

It was losing Lizzie and Mika. It was murdering people. It was watching my friend get shot in the face, and getting hunted by the dead and the living alike, losing my friends, killing them. The confession swells in my chest, until it feels like I'm going to burst...

"I don't want to do it anymore."

There's a loud clash against the wall as I say it. We flinch and stare down at it. I don't look away as I keep talking. "I just... I wanna go home. I wanted to go home with Penelope, but she died, so I thought Enid could be like her. But she's not.

Even if Nell hadn't died yesterday, Penelope's gone. She was gone a long time ago... just another story in my head.

I'm so scared, Carl.

I don't wanna watch you turn into a story, too.

I don't want to be alone one day."

He's hugging me.

"You won't be. You _aren't_ now.

You are so... _loved,_ Oliver.

And I know why you did it. I probably would've done the same thing. Just, promise me that if you do it again you'll take me with you. I mean it. I'll only follow you. I was getting ready to. So promise me."

"...Okay."

He locks us into a pinky promise. I don't think we've ever don't this.

"I don't think you should try so hard to be alright all the time," he tells me. "You think about it too much. It defeats the point. I don't think anybody is totally alright. I think we're just a little right, most of the time, you know?"

I nod, surprised that this had never occurred to me. It seems so obvious. I look out over the wall, watch the walkers amble and shove and snap and chatter. And I feel better.

"Heard what you said to Carol, last night, about Mikey," Carl says. "I think I knew. Just... wish I'd been there, maybe it would have been easier."

"I don't want to talk about it, ever, if that's okay. I... just want to forget."

Carl accepts this.

"Here." He raises his hands. "Know Patty Cake?"

"Yeah... Why?"

"I'm helping you forget, for a while. Play with me."

"With one hand?"

"We'll manage."

I sigh. "Can't you just give me a blow-job like a normal boyfriend?"

Carl punches me. "...Later."

I snort, but raise my hand and arm.

"Okay," Carl says, and for good measure strokes a thumb over my wrist. "Ready?"

Resigning myself, I shrug.

"Patty cake, p—"

I mess up; no hand to clap with. "Sorry."

"Keep going," Carl says.

"—patty cake, baker's man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can."

"Carl."

"What?"

"I'm no good at this."

"Quit being a baby, you're fine."

I feel my cheeks flush. I put my arms down. He frowns. I frown back.

"I'm no good at this," I repeat. "I'm _not_ a baby."

He watches me.

"I don't want to waste time pretending to have fun. _That's_ what kids do."

Carl watches me, frowning. Then he's standing up. "I don't know the rest of the song anyway," he says, pulling me up. "C'mon, man."

"What're we doing?"

Carl kisses my eyelids one at a time and says, very softly, "Trying harder."

* * *

In the hallway, Carl and I sit and share a mug of basil and minestrone soup, a bottle of water, and a flashlight propped up against his knee to face the ceiling.

"Feel better?"

"Err..."

"Keep hugging you pillow then," he tells me.

He's also making me wear my beanie—even put on his own Stetson, and what we're doing now is next in his _How to make Oliver feel better_ book. I like to imagine that this book is a hardback biography titled:

 _How to Oliver  
by  
Carl Jeffrey Grimes_

The title of the first chapter would read:

 _Chapter 1: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and Olivers are from Mercury_

I keep telling him I'm fine, that I'm not particularly sad—not particularly anything. But Carl isn't satisfied. He slurps from the mug observes my technique. Hugging pillows is one of his favourite solitary pass-times. I'm not sure how I didn't know this. Perhaps Carl is a closet serial-hugger. I have images in my head of him wrapped around bedside tables, curtains and desks—these images, to me, are supremely funny, even though I'm frowning into my cotton pillow. I inhale through the memory foam, then I open my eyes and see Carl smiling at me.

"Okay," I whisper, "does feel kinda good."

Carl hands me the mug and tells me to have the last of it.

"I'll waste it," I warn.

"Eat it slowly. Even a little is better than none." I comply, sipping and hugging and breathing. I focus on the moment. It occurs to me that focusing on the moment might be all there really is to feeling better again...feeling me again.

One day.

The mug is empty and my stomach isn't showing signs of trying to evacuate its contents. Plus, the sun is coming up. Carl switches the flashlight off and stands up, groaning Rickly. He looks around at the pinks and blues leaking into the corners of the landing, something peaceful in his eyes like the look he has when Judith is sleeping. He turns to me, signals for me to follow him. I leave my pillow outside my door as not to disturb Noah, and then we're downstairs on the front porch.

"Take your shoes off," Carl says.

I frown, but do as told. He removes his, too.

"Your socks, Oliver."

"But I'm wearing them."

"It'll be worth it."

"They're my favourite pair."

Carl looks down at them. "They're odd. Why are they odd? You never wear odd socks. You say it makes you feel lob-sided."

"I'm trying something new," I say, not really sure how I feel about it yet. "I mean, I have two favourite pairs." The left's rainbow striped and the right has pug faces. "I figured why not wear them at the same time."

Carl's looking at me like I'm mental.

"Come on, man." I pick up my foot, wiggle my toes. "How can you say no to all these little guys? With their smushed faces and gooey bulgy eyeballs? And the rainbows are expressive... of how gay I am... for you... even though a lot of girls are neat too... well, people in general are pretty neat, but I don't have that colour sock... so... these work as an umbrella statement."

"Oliver, please shut up."

I sigh, yanking them both off grudgingly. Carl waits on me to tuck my socks into themselves and leave them in my shoes, but when I start tucking the shoe-laces behind the tongues, Carl grabs my shirt-shoulder and pulls me down the steps.

We hold hands and press shoulders and talk about what Hogwarts house we'd be in (him: Gryffindor, me: Ravenclaw) while we walk barefoot through the grass between our houses, feeling it between our toes because it's soft and cold and dewy and something I've never thought of doing before but am astounded that I've survived this long _without_ doing, because it's amazing and comforting and here and now. In this moment. I can feel it again. That something. The same something I felt with Enid that day we ran through the forest. It's like this ball of energy that I have in my hand and don't quite know what to do with, only I do...

 _The moment will come when kids can just be kids again.  
...And this might just be that moment._

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

"Carl? I have an idea..."

Oliver smiles at me, and this time, I know I can believe it.

"...Run."

"What?"

"Run with me, Carl."

And that's exactly what I do.

Flying across the community, racing around the gazebo, chasing through the streets, pulling and twisting and laughing. Finally, we're running the last stretch home, and the sky is blue and purple. The clouds look like cotton candy.

Once inside, Oliver doubles forward against the kitchen island, out of breath. I walk it off from the living room into the kitchen with him. "Need your inhaler?"

Oliver shakes his head. " _Oddio!_ " He's laughing, clutching his chest. " _Il mio cuore..._ it's gonna beat right out of my throat."

"It's called having fun," I pant, "I think."

Oliver laughs, lets out a moan, doubles forward again, and stares at the floor. His hand palms the kitchen surface, running his bandage over his hair. Eventually he relents and takes his inhaler. "Jesus shit-balls."

"It's good, huh?" I grin.

He's nodding and laughing and rubbing the sweat away from his face, and then he turns to me and kisses me. Our breath is the only noise in the house. I feel the damp patches on his shirt under my palms, taste the sweat in my mouth when I kiss his throat. The way his hair sticks in wet clumps between my fingers. I pull his shirt open, let my hands wonder; his, too. He's walking backwards, pulling me against the island, the stools scraping as he pushes them aside and kneels in front of me. I know what he wants to do and I let him.

"Button."

"Yeah."

"Watch the zipper."

"Got it, man."

And then my jeans are dropped to my ankles and Oliver is doing that _thing_ I said we'd do later and all I can think is that it's inappropriate and outrageous and totally, _totally_ awesome. I don't recall putting my hands through his hair, or the speed at which my whole face goes numb, or how I remain standing at the feeling of him being so perfectly there _there there_...

Somebody is heading down the staircase. Michonne, _freaking Michonne,_ turns around the staircase and heads to the fridge opposite us. I'm shuffling and gasping and pushing Oliver away.

"Dude..." "Morning, Carl." "Stop!"

Oliver stops so _Goddamn_ suddenly that I almost collapse right here against the counter, managing what is supposed to be a, "Hey, Michonne," back that turns out to be a trembling wave at the sink and a high pitched whimper-mumble against the kitchen counter. I push my hat over my head before it falls off. Michonne's mouth is open, eyes wide, staring at me and the kitchen island that she can't see past but knows exactly what _is_ past.

"Are you..."

"No."

Oliver peers over the surface, a hand over his mouth, hair scruffed-up and eyes all pupil. He ducks back under. I yank up my jeans, apologising and dying.

Michonne looks round the room like she's trying to find an escape route.

"I am going to go upstairs," she decides, "and when I come back down we'll just pretend this never happened. Deal?"

We all nod, even Oliver who's still hiding. I kick him. Oliver grunts and thumps me back in the shin. When I wince, Michonne's eyes widened and she turns away to climb the staircase. Oliver and I watch her until she's gone. Then I grab Oliver's collar and yanked him to stand, sharing about a three-second argument that is so jumbled that the only words I understand from it is, "Get!" and "Tuck it," and "Jesus shit," and "Dude, _stop!_ " before she's coming back down and we both stumble to sit on our stools, one empty between us.

"Morning, boys," Michonne says, and grabs an apple. "How'd you sleep?"

We nod and mumble noises. My flannel's undone. I button them. A button's been ripped off the first one. Oliver winces and tries to neaten his hair. It's useless. He's a mess. We both are.

"Well..." she says, "thanks for answering... Anyway, I'm heading out for watch. Your dad'll be back soon. He'd probably like you two to do some chores or something. Dishes need doing."

"Okay," I say. "We're on it."

Michonne nods and leaves.

"Well that was totally awful," Oliver says to the marble counter.

I blow out through my cheeks. Oliver sighs, red faced. I'm sure I'm in the same state. Finally, his eyes close and his hand comes up to pull at his beanie.

"If you're looking at me because you're expecting me to keep going, that's totally not happening right now."

I stutter, try to argue, but end up just groaning.

Oliver winces. "We should get the dishes done."

"You dry, I'll wash."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

We finish chores and head next door. Not a minute in, Noah curses from upstairs and a loud bang makes us all jump, then, "OLIVER!"

"Noah?"

"What the hell, dude?!" he shouts from upstairs. I look at Carl and Judith across the living room.

"What did you do?" Carl asks.

"I don't know."

Rosita's in the kitchen and she scoffs, shaking her head and cutting into apples. "Sounds like someone's in deep—"

"Shit," I mutter, standing up nervously because Noah is rounding the staircase, glaring and rubbing the side of his face. I see the red mark there, and I see my pillow in his other hand. "Err, hey, man..."

"What the hell is your pillow doing right outside our freaking door?!"

"Oh, right. I..."

"You trying to disable me again?!"

"No," I say. "I didn't wanna wake you."

Noah throws it at me. "Quit leaving your crap around!"

"I... wait..."

"What's up with you?" Rosita asks him. Noah glares at her. "Noah. It's just a pillow."

He turns to me and points a finger. "Pick up your shit or I'll kick your ass!" Then, before anybody can say anything, Noah storms out the house, leaving a thick, empty space behind. I look at Carl, and he's about to say something but just as he opens his mouth Rick walks through the door.

"Hey," Carl greets him.

"Boys. Was gonna practice with Ron."

"With what?"

"Just a handgun," Rick answers. "Wanna join?"

"Yeah," Carl says.

"I'm okay," I say.

Rick chuckles dryly. "You, young man, do not have a choice."

 _Dammit..._

* * *

 **Notes**

 **AwkwardlyMeOli** , ALL of the Pan references are on YOU! YOUR fault! (And I adore you for it duh)

Thank you, CodeName A. N. D. Y for the book title that won't make full sense to anybody but you :D

I've been watching a lot of Shameless and it's rubbed off on my writing... no regrets. *every kind of regrets*

As always,  
Happy reading.


	7. Heads Up, Part 2: Mirror Therapy

**DarthGranola** Thanks

 **Uriel867** I will! Good to hear from you again!

 **Rolo-chan** Yeah, I had a plan for him to get out and run into Ron, then find Enid and go to Lorton to put his parents down, then I watched the episode and... oh, okay, nope. I have a scene for that coming soon! Read on! Peter Pan is my addiction lately. Never apologise for long reviews! They are my drug! Thank you!

 **IWalkAlone** Hello! Y'know, I totally read that as the song... Hello... it's me... Isn't the drawing beautiful? andytweed did such a stunning job. Please make an account and we can talk it all out. It's so good to hear from you again. But yes, pleeeeeeease make an account!

 **Natsumo Fujoshit you** Okay, your username is so interesting. Ah, God, thank you! Gah! Don't kick yourself, or scream! yup, my cheeks were burning when I wrote the kitchen scene.

 **Anna Katharyn** me too!

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** It's okay! Read whenever! I don't mind! Thanks!

* * *

 _CW: Possible trigger warnings for self harm and eating disorders. It's not explicit, but be kind to yourselves._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

Rick leads all three of us around the lake and through the gazebo. It's cloudy out this morning. The grass is overgrown and spring flowers are starting to bloom. The growling is still there—makes it hard not to frown.

Gabriel's taping up signs in the gazebo.

 _PRAYER CIRCLE  
BY THE  
SOLAR PANELS  
TODAY  
AT  
1 : 00_

Rick tears them down.

"Dad..."

Carl's ignored. He stop and looks back at Gabriel, who proceeds to tape up another sign as replacement, giving Carl a nod that is returned.

"Boys!"

Summoned, we turn and keep walking.

* * *

By the west wall, gathered around a wooden work-shop bench, Rick, Carl, Ron and Oliver are beginning their lesson on handguns.

"Magazine release. Slide release. Thumb safety."

"That stuff's easy, right, Dad?"

"Yeah." He ejects the rounds and shows Ron. "Empty magazine. Empty chamber. See it?"

"Yep."

Rick steps away from the table and faces the wall. He points his left hand; it's bandaged—yesterday he cut it on something. "If someone's in front of you, they have a gun..."

"You're gonna be scared," Carl says. Ron regards him. "You will be," Carl insists—I get this feeling like Carl never really got bullied at school, and as a result, hasn't learned when and when not to stay under the radar to avoid any unnecessary beatings.

"Your body's gonna tense," Rick continues —I thump Carl's foot under the table— "won't have time to think. You're just gonna wanna pull the trigger when you get it in fronta you."

Rick squares up to the wall and plays out a sloppy draw.

"But you'll miss, and you'll be dead." He withdraws, checks the safety. "You have to get it up to your eye." Again, he demonstrates, only this time his draw is quick and steady.

"You gotta be strong enough to wait for your moment."

This time, I shut my eyes at Carl's interjection, figuring in my head that he just wants _both_ of us to get beat on. When I look, Ron's looking at the space between Carl and I. He addressed Rick...

"Can I, uh?"

Rick hands him the handgun. Ron takes his place, squaring up to the wall, stretching, aiming.

"Hey," Rick steps forward, tugging his index away from its place, "your finger doesn't touch the trigger, 'til you're ready to shoot."

He steps back.

Ron tries again, scrunching an eye. His posture's a little slouched and his grip's a little loose, but overall, not bad.

 ** _Better than you were.  
_** _Touché.  
 **Better than you are now.  
** Bite me.  
 **A walker already did, remember?**_

Ron pulls the empty trigger with a satisfying, click, then drops his arm.

"Keep that one with you," Rick instructs, walking around him. "Get a feel of what it's like to carry one around."

"Can I shoot it?" Ron asks. "You know, I mean, down at the walkers?"

"Not with things how they are," Rick tells him. "Walls're strong. But we're lucky the walkers're spread out, we don't wanna pull them all to one spot."

For this tiny second Ron doesn't look like Ron anymore. Then he's back. He says, "Well, what about, like, target practice in the centre of town? 'Cos the sound'll spread out in each direction... or we could use, like, silencers or something like that?"

Rick's mouth twitches—Carl's too, which I don't know if he realises. Ron catches on.

"But uh... I mean, we probably don't wanna waste the bullets right now, huh?"

Rick steps over to the table to get another handgun. Carl and I just try not to look awkward.

"Just wanna learn more..." Ron admits.

"You will," Carl tells him.

"Oliver," Rick says. Standing up straight, I turn to him and tuck my arm into my hoodie pocket. "Haven't seen you use your gun yet."

I shrug. "Used it yesterday."

"How was it?"

 _Killing people?_ I think. _I hated it, thanks._

"How accurate?" he elaborates.

Again, I shrug.

"Can you show me? See if there's anything you can do to improve?" It's another shrug from me in answer. Rick tilts his head. "I know it sounded like a question, Oliver, but it wasn't."

"Yessir."

I take the handgun, check the safety, and take aim, squinting down the barrel. Rick steps over and places his hands on both of my biceps. He squeezes gently.

"Relax your shoulders. Might help if you take your arm outa your pocket."

I glance over my shoulder at him, then at Carl and Ron who are watching. I wonder if spontaneous combustion might be a possible thing that could happen to me right now?

Rick steps into my eye-line, dipping his head expectantly. "G'on, Oliver."

I do, taking the empty shot several times before Rick is satisfied, and even then he asks me for more, until my cheeks are red and my jaw is clenched and my hand is shaking with Backward.

"Dad..."

Rick looks at his son, nods. "Alright, Oliver." I drop my arm. The handgun hits the table with a clatter.

Stuffing both arms in my pocket, I turn and walk away.

"Oliver."

"Later," I say, only it doesn't sound right.

"Oliver, wait!" Carl follows me to the edge of the grass. "Wait a sec, would y..." He grabs my arm so hard it's pulled out of my pocket. He lets go immediately. "I'm sorry. I didn't... Your left one. I was aiming for... I didn't mean to—"

"It's fine."

He's nodding. "I'll... I'll take you home."

I'm not sure what happens to me but Carl seems to shrink then, very quickly. "No!" I'm shouting at him. "Leave me alone!"

He steps back. I walk away.

* * *

At the second house, Bean is waiting for me. I look for Carol but realise she and I aren't talking. She's not here anyway. I go upstairs. I have that feeling like I'm having a panic attack. Someone sobs. Me. And then I yack into my trash can.

 ** _You're disgusting._**

I take my fingers out of my throat and sit back quietly. Bean is scratching at the door. I shout at him to go away. And then I spend a while trying to calm my breath, distracting myself from my head by hitting my amp against the bedside table. It surprises me that it works. I do it again. It hurts, bad, and I focus on that until the rest of the noise goes away.

After a while, I'm just sitting next to my bed, breathing slow and calm. My amputation is numb and bruised, and parts of scarring is broken and bleeding. I wrap it in an old shirt.

 ** _You done now, asshole?  
_** _Yeah... I'm done.  
 **Good. Now get up and take a shower.  
** Don't want to.  
 **Don't care. Clean the damn trash can while you're at it.**_

I get up, empty and clean the trash can, and take a shower. I wait to stop bleeding, which doesn't take long. I get out and wrap my arm up again. While I'm getting dressed, I hear people come in the house so I hide in my bedroom and dry as quickly as I can.

Somebody knocks.

"Oliver, you in there?" Carl asks.

"Wait a sec," I say, rushing to hide the bloody T-shirt. I pull on a clean hoodie and jeans, which is hard when my belt and sheath are still strapped. Carl is polite enough to wait a few minutes until I've managed to get ready "Err. Okay."

He pokes his head in. "Hey."

"I'm sorry," I say, knowing it doesn't sound good enough. "I didn't mean to yell at you."

He nods. He says, "Dad wants to talk to you." I go. Rick tells me that he wants me to go do rehabilitation therapy with Denise. I try to get out of it, but Rick takes my shoulder and walks me out of the house.

"Might be worth asking her to check about your asthma, too," he says along the way.

"Like an asthma review?" I sound more like I'm complaining that I'd meant.

"Yeah," Rick answers. "Carol mentioned you've been strugglin' lately."

"Normal to me," I shrug.

When we get there, Rick stands next to me before knocking. He hugs me. I frown into his shoulder, not sure what to do, even less sure when he kisses the top of my head. I pull away. I look up at him, but I don't say anything.

Then he turns and walks away.

Bean is looking up at me.

"I don't know what that was about either," I tell him. He gives me a paw that I ignore. Instead, I knock on the clinic door four times, only it's only once because Denise opens the door and walks right into me.

"Oh! Gosh!" she yelps. I stagger back. "Hey. Oliver. Hey." Bean sniffs her. She pets his neck. "What's up? I mean, uh, how can I help you?"

I shrug and jerk my right elbow in her direction, the rest of my arm inside my hoodie pocket.

"Rick says I need an asthma review and more rehabilitation stuff..." I'm thinking that I didn't finish knocking, so I quickly reach forward and knock another three times on the door. I stand back again.

Denise looks lost. "What?"

I sigh. "My lungs suck and my hand—my amp, itches like a bitch."

She blinks. "And, you want me to do some exercises with you again?"

I shrug. "I don't think they're helping."

She gestures for me to come inside. "Take a seat. I think we're gonna try the mirror today."

* * *

The clinic is clean and cozy—definitely nicer than I remember it. Scott is sleeping in the bed across the room after treatment on a gunshot wound.

I'm waiting for Denise to come back from her apartment with the mirror, sitting by a tall stand with a board of notes on how to treat certain injuries; _the primary survey; gun-shot; infection; head trauma; amputation; cauterization._

"Oof..." Denise returns, lugging a large mirror against her chest. "I never thought about how weird it feels to stare at yourself while crossing the street."

She props it against the wall opposite me and takes a seat beside it. I get to thinking about how strange staring at yourself is, too. The most time I spend looking at my reflection is while I brush my teeth. I don't think I like it. I always look older than I picture myself. My hair's always too mad and my underbite's always too prominent and my nose is always too long. I don't like the big bruise across my face, or the scars, all particularly dark-looking today.

"Do you want me to move it?"

I look at her, embarrassed. I nod. She does, pulling it aside to face away. She turns to me and clasps her fingers together.

"So, what d'you wanna focus on first, chest or arm."

"Chest."

She retrieves a peak flow from a drawer and tells me, "Blow through this as hard as you can." I do—haven't since I was thirteen. "One hundred and sixty," she reads once I hand it back. "Oh... wow."

"What?"

"Do you feel like you're struggling?"

I shrug. "It's usually worse."

Again: "Wow."

"What am I supposed to be getting?"

"Four hundred. Four hundred and fifty. Technically, right now... you're having an asthma attack." I don't know why I find this so ironic. Denise makes a very anxious noise and goes across the room to a counter above the sink. "Here," she says, grabbing two inhalers. She gives them to me. "This one's Neovent." The green one, a label on it saying it's prescribed to a _Kelly Mellor_. "It'll keep your airways open for longer. This one is Clenis Modulite." The brown one, prescribed for someone called _Elliot Jackson._ "It works kinda like the Ventolin but it just takes a little longer to kick in, but it lasts longer. Now, when you take them all, you should drink or eat something after so that the stuff doesn't stick to the back of your throat. It can give you sores."

"Why can't I just use my blue one?"

"Well, the Ventolin works fast. But it doesn't last long," she answers. "You're using it, what... few times a week?" "Every day."

Her face drops.

"How many times every day?!"

"A few..."

She looks like she's just bitten into something too hot, or cold—maybe it bit her back!

"Okay, well first off, it's really not supposed to be used like that. At all. It desensitises you, so the more you use the less effective it'll be."

 _...oh._

"It's okay though," she tells me quickly, "we've got enough inhalers— _more_ than enough."

I get this feeling like I just wasn't meant to live this long, that I'm just some fluke that slipped under the universe's dead-list.

"Alright, use the green and brown every morning and evening. Two puffs each."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"What if I need the blue one?"

She shakes her head. "Just, wait it out. Don't use the blue unless you absolutely have to. Your brown and green will do their job, it'll just take a little longer."

I take them now, the brown and green. The green makes my lungs seize and the brown makes my throat burn.

"Just try not to think about it," she tells me, handing me water.

I shake my head and reach into my pocket instead, but she snatches the Ventolin inhaler. I look at her desperately.

"If you pass out, I'll give you a Nebulizer and make you an _I'm sorry_ cake, okay?"

 _Won't make much difference if I'm already dead._

"I promise."

I agree, breathing in through my nose, and out through my mouth.

"Where's this itch you mentioned?" I point at the place my hand should be, wheezing. "In your fingers?" It takes me aback that she didn't tell me it's all just in my head. Everybody tells me that. Even Carol.

I nod.

"Okay. So, I've been reading." She grabs a book: _Amputation, and Phantom Limb Pain._ "It's pretty common for amputee patients to feel their lost limb even though it's not there. What does it feel like now?"

"Like... something's pinching me," I explain. "Right on my palm, like I'm holding an angry crab or something."

Denise smiles. "What you're doing now." She must see the muscles in my forearm moving. "Does it help?"

"No."

"Does it ever hurt?"

"Sometimes... Sometimes I wake up from it, like I'm getting bitten all over again. Sometimes it's so bad it makes me yack."

"Does that happen often. Trouble sleeping?"

"Yeah."

"What about the yacki... vomiting?"

I don't answer that one.

"D'you throw up a lot? From the nightmares?"

I shake my head. I shrug.

"After meals?"

"I just... I find it hard to keep stuff down."

She's writing something into a notebook he'd kept in her pocket.

"It's just not very useful," I ramble. "There's not much food, so if I yack I waste, so I try not to eat, so I get used to that, and when I do eat it makes me sick... and then, sometimes, if I just need to, I just yack."

"On purpose?"

"No. No, I... I don't have an eating disorder."

She purses her lips.

I frown at her.

"I can help, Oliver." Denise waits a while for me to relax my shoulders before talking again. "You know, my Gramps was a war veteran. He lost his legs. My uncle said when he came back, after all the terrible stuff he'd seen, he wasn't ever the same. Like he brought the war home with him.

He had PTSD, too.

He suffered from it all his life after that. He almost took his own life. But he had my uncle and mom.

I gotta say, getting bit's gotta be pretty traumatic, right? Like your own war you brought back? And everything else before that, since?"

"I'm not crazy."

"Of course, you aren't." She moves off her seat and kneels on the floor, gesturing me to join her. "C'mon. Sit next to me. We're gonna try mirror therapy now."

* * *

Rehabilitation therapy is usually putting pressure on the scarring and rubbing it to stretch the skin. It's painful and awful, but thankfully we don't do this today. She doesn't even touch my amp at all.

She props the mirror between my knees, the reflective side facing my left hand and the non-reflective side facing my right, holding the mirror steady with her hand.

"So, this is supposed to trick your brain into thinking that the hand it sees in the mirror is your amputated hand. Lift them at the same time, squeeze them and stretch them and do whatever, all at the same time, and watch it through the mirror, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Alright. Go ahead, Oliver."

I'm thinking this isn't going to work, that I just look like an idiot, that Denise is new to this and she's just as clueless as I am. But then I start doing it, and it starts to kind of works. When I run my fingers across my palm, I feel it. Swear. Plain as day. Almost. I do it again, squeezing this time.

"Whoa..."

"Wait, it actually works?"

"What?"

"I mean, yes!" She stands. "Yes of course it does. Duh. Hm. Ah." I like the noises Denise makes when she gets excited. "How does it feel?" she asks.

"I can't tell," I mumble. "But, it's good. I think."

She grins like she's focussing hard on not hopping up and down on the spot. "Hey, want some oatmeal?"

"Oh. Sure."

"Great! You keep on... uh... you know... _that_ ing."

"Yes, ma'am."

She goes to the kitchen area. I hear her mutter, "Ma'am. Could get used to that," under her breath while she prepares our lunch. "Hey," she says to me a moment later, whispering for Scott's sake. "How's your chest?"

It's only then that I notice I can breathe. Like, _really_ breathe. I inhale fast and deep. Denise grins as the microwave _biiirs_ in the corner.

"Cool, huh?"

"Yeah," I answer, amazed. I inhale deeply. "You... You breathe like this all the time? Sonofabitch, this is great. How long will I stay like this?"

The microwave _ding!_ s.

Denise opens it, says, "If you keep taking your inhalers, should stay like this..." She grabs a spoon but gets distracted by something outside which she sees through the window. Quickly, I'm handed a cup of oatmeal and a spoon. Denise heads to the door, but realises she's forgotten her own spoon and rushes to get one, then remembers the door again and rushes back to it.

I'm grinning madly at her, mixing my oatmeal. I decide that Denise is awkward and mesmerising.

Morgan is at the door.

"Hey," she says to him, cocking her leg to keep Bean outside—he must've been waiting for me. "Sorry." She prods at her oatmeal. "I was making..." It seems to occur to her that she picked up a wooden spoon. She scoffs softly at herself, then looks up at Morgan. "Want some oatmeal?"

"Thank you. I'm okay."

Denise watches him. "You were coming to the door, what's up?"

"I-I'm not here for... I'm fine."

"You can tell me if you're not." There's something about the way Denise speaks that makes it very easy to believe her.

"Morgan..." It's Rick now, walking by, by the sounds of it. "Can we talk now?"

"M-hm."

"Denise?" Rick says.

"Yeah."

"He in there?"

"Yeah," she answers, glancing at me for a second. A few times now I've been caught skipping rehabilitation.

Morgan is walking away. Denise is watching after him. When she turns back to me, she asks, "Why'd you stop?"

"Leftie's tired," I say, rubbing the ache against my thigh.

She nods, "It'll get easier with practice. Promise."

 _You make a lot of promises._

I take a spoonful of oatmeal.

"Hey."

I look up to her, suddenly convincing myself she's reprimanding me for eating the oatmeal, and for some reason it seems like the only option I have is to spit it back out again into the mug.

She grimaces, stutters, "N-no. You can eat the oatmeal, Oliver."

"Err..." I do exactly that, and regret it immediately after I see the look on her face. "Sorry."

"It's fine... I was gonna say, do you want to talk about it? You know, what happened with Aiden, or anything else, something before the turn even... if you want?"

I shrug.

"We can talk about Nell. I know you two were friends, before. And I know I'm a doctor here, but after my panic attacks, I studied psychology, so I could be like your therapist."

I smile uncomfortably, thinking of my dad. "I'm alright."

She sighs. "I know you're not."

I eat more oatmeal to get the lump in my throat to go away, and Denise takes the hint. She puts the mirror over against the wall, reflective-side facing away, then comes over and sits next to me, and we eat the rest of our oatmeal on the floor in silence together. I don't know if it's her strategy, to stay quiet long enough, but it must work because it's me who speaks first.

"How did you stop your panic attacks?"

We're at the sink now; she's taking my mug from me and washing it. "Learned how to manage them."

"But... how did you do that?"

"Breathing exercises." Denise moves her head when she talks. Sometimes she'll tighten her pony tail or just rub her hand down it, like she's making sure it's still there or something. "They work most of the time. Know how to do breathing exercises?"

I shake my head. Funny, a guy who spends so much time thinking about how to breathe doesn't really know much about breathing at all.

"It's kinda similar to settling asthma attacks. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Slowly. Relax your body."

"They get really bad sometimes," I confess. "I feel like I'm having a heart attack, like I'm dying and I don't know why."

She gives me this look, like she knows exactly what I mean. "Wanna practice them?"

"Err..."

"C'mon. Sit. Won't take long."

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

I'm reading one of Judith's children's books about a boy, a stallion, and a unicorn. I think I'm doing too many crossword puzzles; I keep counting the letters in every word. But that's fine. Judith fell asleep before the third page anyway. Still, I finish it anyway because Dad, Carol, Michonne and Morgan are having a meeting downstairs which I'm not meant to interrupt.

The meeting must be over because Carol comes into Oliver's room and searches for dirty clothes. She watches Judith in her crib.

"Thanks for moving her up here," Carol whispers.

"It's fine."

She's looking at me. When I don't meet her look, Carol says, "I know you tried to sneak out last night."

I turn to her. "How?"

"You walked right past me. I was out on the porch," she explains, "thinking about lighting a cigarette, before I..."

"Before you what?"

"Why did you decide to go alone?"

"Why do you think?" I grumble. "You were all ready to drop him? You were leaving him out there. Like he's nothing. Like you don't even care."

"You're not the only one who loves that boy, Carl."

I watch her this time. "You were gonna go after him, weren't you?"

"Of course I was," she says. "I almost lost him once. I'm not about to do it again."

"But he... He doesn't know that. Carol, he thinks—"

"Trust me. It's better that way. I only make things worse."

"What?"

"I keep... trying." She touches her throat, like she's trying to shape the words. "I want to show him that I..." She stops and shakes her head. "But I can't. Not anymore. I have to stop."

"Stop? Stop what, being there for him? Caring about him?"

"Please, I'm trying to explain."

"No, this is bullshit!" I whisper.

"Carl."

"This isn't fair. This is what he's afraid of. This is what he's been trying to protect himself from, but it's... it's not fair!"

Judith's awake, crying.

"It's not going to be fair on him," Carol snaps at me. "It's not going to be fair on any of us! But this is how you protect the people you love."

I glare at her and Carol seems to suddenly shrink.

"I don't know why I said anything. I shouldn't have said anything. Just... don't tell him."

I inhale steeply, thinking about her façade here, and how much damage she and all of us have caused this place, and I'm thinking about how necessary it's been because they'd all be dead if we hadn't come along.

"We keep too many secrets," I grumble. "It's doing nothing except pushing us further apart."

She shrugs miserably, then leaves the room. I fuss over Judith and I think about how complicated everything is and how ignorant I am to it all. If I am the boy, then Oliver is the stallion and Carol is the unicorn.

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

I play I spy with Lizzie and Mika in my head.

 _"Nest?"_

 _"Nope. Oliver, you try."_

"Nostril?"

 _"Nope. Lizzie?"_

 _"Nail? Like on your fingers?"_

 _"Nu-uh."_

A bird flies overhead. I squint and watch it. "Nell's notebook?" I ask, feeling it in my pocket. I think really hard about what Mika's hand feels like. If I think about it hard enough it's almost real, tangled in the hand I don't have.

 _"Got it..."_

"Oliver? Who are you talking to?" I turn. Noah walks after me. Bean greets him, but is ignored. Noah points at me. "Do you know where Aaron is?"

I shake my head. I put my arm in my hoodie pocket.

"I wanna go in the dark room," Noah explains. "Nobody's been in there since..."

 _"Since before Nell died."_

I shush. Noah frowns at me. He moves on: "What about that... uh... big key chain, thing? I was just in their house lookin' for it. They usually keep it in the pot next to the fridge."

"You went through their stuff?" I accuse.

"And you _haven't_?" he snaps back. "I know what you keep in your pocket, Oliver."

"It's back at home," I blurt, pointing. "In my backpack."

Noah grits his teeth and heads there. I watch him go. Tara's on the side-walk, arms crossed, watching. When Noah is gone, she greets me.

"Hey."

I go up on tip-toes when Tara bumps my shoulder. I look at her and know I'm meant to reply, or at least smile, but I don't.

"Cool hoodie."

"Thanks," I say flatly.

"Sooo... what's up with you two?"

I bury my face in my hand. "I'm just really good at pissing him off."

Tara frowns. "You should go after him."

"I shouldn't."

"No, no..." She's pushing my shoulders. "I think you should..."

"Knock it off!"

"Nope!"

I groan in dismay and relent across the street. "Okay, okay, I'm going." I'm not even looking at her and I know she's grinning.

* * *

 **Notes**

Hope it wasn't boring. The asthma review was inspired by a conversation I had with my doc about my own asthma a few months ago... whoops. Also, I love Denise.

As always,  
Happy reading.


	8. Heads Up, Part 3: Ten Green Balloons

**Natsumo Fujoshit you** yup, vivid imagination, of your friends... and family... who are dead... enjoy!

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** Aww. He'd be flattered.

 **The Flash Fanatic** Hello! Thanks.

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

Noah doesn't protest to me or Bean accompanying him. We haven't said anything yet. Equipped with the key, we go to the dark room without a word. Once inside, we keep the door open while we go about taking down the light-blockers around the blinds, letting sunlight in. Bean sniffs around the room, but doesn't find the girl he's looking for.

Finally, Noah talks. "How was practice?"

"Fine."

Noah gives me a tight smile. I don't give one back.

 _"You're supposed to be amending your friendship, dude,"_ Patrick reminds me. _"Not making it worse."_

 _"Go on, Ollie. He won't bite..."_

I push myself up onto a counter. It's dusty. I rub it off on my jeans. I tuck my amp in my hoodie pocket. "How was machete practice?" I ask.

"Fine."

I frown. _Well screw you then!_

 _"I said he wouldn't bite. I never said anything about conversational reciprocation."_

Noah's looking up at the photos that have been left to dry. I hop off the counter and cross the room. Like Carl had said, Daryl and Aaron aren't recruiting anymore, so these photos are different. These photos are personal. Most are of Enid sleeping; her hair messy and her face soft. Fascinating and beautiful. I get this feeling that Nell was a little obsessed with Enid, and I get this even bigger feeling that Enid didn't mind. There's a photo of Jessie tying her hair back. One of Ron yelling at Sam. Olivia noting supplies. Carl and I up on the roof. Denise getting caught reading War and Peace with a half-eaten smore in her mouth—I look at that one and for some reason my chest flitters, like the way it does when I watch Carl draw things, or bite his tongue while concentrating on a crossword puzzle.

There are more; people talking, grimacing, yawning, doing nothing... lost in their thoughts.

"She liked getting people when they were just being them," Noah says slowly, like he isn't really here. "Not trying, or posing or performing. Not acting the way they're supposed to or the way they're expected to. Just... being."

There's one of Carl laid on the couch reading a comic; he has about three chins. One of Noah, a view of his notes over his shoulder. Another of Mikey looking up through a staircase banister, his eyes big and bored. I look away from that one, clear my throat when it goes dry.

Noah picks up one of the sky—nothing really special about it except that I can see Penelope's thumb in the left corner.

"This is the only photo with her in it," Noah says. He looks at me. "Sorry 'bout all the yelling earlier. I'm just... kinda..."

"Going through it," I mumble, tired all of a sudden.

"Yeah..."

"Did you wanna keep them? The photos?"

He regards this idea but shakes his head. "Not really. Just... wanted to be closer to her. This was the only thing I could think of. Still isn't the same though."

Looking at her photos is more like reading her fiction than her fact. I get this feeling like there's still truth in it, like the stories always come from somewhere, but you just have to look very hard.

"Was practicin' with the machetes earlier," Noah changes subject. "I was using yours."

I turn. "Oh..."

"I didn't realise until I saw the red handle. Hope you don't mind."

I shrug and collect a few photos. "I don't use it anymore. I don't care."

"Was weird," Noah remarks. "Last time I held it, I used it to... to..."

"Cut off my hand," I finish. "Yeah, must've pretty weird for you, huh?"

"Come on, man," Noah complains. "I didn't mean it like that..."

"It's fine," I say. "Whatever." The phantom pain starts up again. I tuck my amp into my pocket and Bean sniffs at me like I might feed him from it, and it occurs to me that I haven't fed him yet today at all.

 _Shit_.

 _"Yeah..."_ Nell whispers to me. _"Looking after pets is hard."_

"Sorry," I tell her.

"Nah, man," Noah says, and I don't tell him I wasn't actually talking to him. "You don't gotta be sorry. I'm sorry."

I shrug. "I'd be dead if you hadn't done it. I'd be worse than dead. I'd be one of them."

"No, I mean, I'm just... sorry. Sorry it happened. Sorry I've been an asshole."

"I get it."

Noah nods. We go about collecting the photos.

"Did Nell ever talk to you, about me?"

"Sure. Guess."

"I mean... you know... _talk about me_ talk about me." I frown at him across the room, and he sighs. "C'mon, man, I already hate myself for asking."

"Then why are you asking at all?"

He hesitates, thumbing at the counter he'd been wiping down.

"I kissed her, the other day. I thought she wanted me to."

"You thought?"

"Yeah. But I was wrong."

"What happened?"

"Nothing," he says. "I mean, no, not nothing. Something... Kinda." I'm frowning. "Things got... intense. Well, I thought they did."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because she stopped it."

"You let her?"

He frowns. "Yeah. Of course. Wh–"

"Nothing..." I let out a breath. "Just, wanted to make sure."

It takes half the walk home before he speaks again, trailing as he goes: "Do you know if... she... you know... was even into... y'know?"

I look at him, not sure what to say.

"I know she said she was asexual, but..." He sighs. "But maybe that was just an excuse. Just a thing."

"It is a thing. But I don't think it's an excuse, man."

"You don't?"

"I don't."

"Guess you'd understand it better, being gay and all."

"I'm not gay."

"But..."

"Yeah," I say, "existing statistics aren't in my favour blah blah."

Noah laughs. "You sound like her."

I shrug.

"So, you just know you're not?" he asks. "How?"

Again, I shrug, thinking about Enid's back after she gets out of the shower and Denise's hands in the sink, brushing my fingers when I passed her my empty mug. My crushes are strange, but they're crushes.

Noah seems not to need to talk anymore about this.

"I wish she took just one of herself," he says, looking at the photos I'd taken with me.

"I think that's what she wanted though," I murmur. "She loved stories. I think, when it came down to it... to the end... all she wanted was to be a story, too."

Noah looks like he might cry.

"Sorry," I say. "I just mean, like you. You want to build. And, Deanna wants to make a better future. Carl wants to protect this place, and draw and do crossword puzzles. Rick's keeping us and his kids safe. You know? Like, everybody's got something they're working for. Everyone's got a bigger picture. But Nell? She just had her stories. That's all she wanted to leave behind. No walls or shells or plans... no evidence... just stories."

"Sounds like her," Noah admits.

I nod carefully.

"What about you then?" he asks, smiling. "What are you working for? What's your bigger picture?"

"I... I don't know."

We keep walking a minute.

"I loved her," Noah tells me. I turn to face him. He stops, eyes down on the gravel. "Even if she didn't love me back, like that. I did..." He lets out a breath, like it was meant to be a laugh as well, like he can't quite understand why. "I loved her like crazy. I loved her like she wasn't even real."

And then he looks at me, and I realise that Nell's haunting him too.

 _"I'm in your head, Ollie."_

"I... I know."

"You do?" Noah asks.

I tell him, "I loved her, too. Like she wasn't real. I... I loved Penelope. I grew up with her. And even when she was Nell, I still held on to Penelope because... I don't know. I thought I still could. But Penelope wasn't real anymore. She was just a version of Nell, a story that just... _wasn't_ anymore. And, I think everybody else had their own story of her, too."

He tucks his the one photo of the sky and her thumb into his jeans pocket, nodding, as much to communicate his understanding as to nod away the tears.

"I'm sorry I left my pillow outside our door," I tell him.

Noah turns to me again. He tries not to, but he laughs, the kind of laugh that's hiding a sob somewhere inside it, too. He grabs my shoulder and pulls.

"Come on."

It's soon after that, that we hear the yelling. Shots are fired. We get to the commotion in time to see Tara climbing back onto the watch tower from outside, and Rick, Tobin and Michonne up on another guard post, glaring down on the heap of Spencer panting on the floor in front of them, roaps dangling all over the place.

"Tara!" Rick roars. "Y'almost died once for these people!"

" _What?_ " she yells.

"What the _hell're_ you doin'?!"

She puts her middle finger up at him.

Rick turns back to Spencer.

" _What_ was that?"

"I was trying to help?" Spencer answers. "I wanted to get to a car, draw them away."

"You ever make a climb like that before?" Rick growls. "You wanna help, _don't_ make us come runnin' to save you. You got an idea. You come to _me_!"

"Would you've listened to me?" Spencer asks, only I can't be sure; I'm heading to the first house.

I find Carol babysitting Judith. It's awkward and uncomfortable, and I try to think of something to say.

"Would you like some soup?" she asks.

I shake my head, then turn and leave the house.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

Oliver enters the house so quickly I startle. He looks tense, like usual. Bean goes into the living room to curl up under the Morse code board. It's kind of his spot now.

"Hey," I say. Oliver's heading up to his room and only just notices me. "I uh, saw that you hadn't put any water or kibble down, so I did it for you."

"Slam," Oliver says, "sorry about that."

I shrug and put my pen behind my ear.

"Thank you, for the kibble."

I tug the rim of my hat down. We watch Bean sniff at his food. He doesn't eat any, but has some water, then goes back to his spot.

Oliver dawdles over to the dining room table. "Another crossword puzzle?"

I nod. I'd found his beanie, too, so I hand it over to him when Oliver sits next to me. He rests his cheek on the table and watches at me. I offer him a Granola bar but he says no. I insist. He has half, then hands me the other half.

"I _am_ sorry I yelled at you."

"I know," I tell him. I reach into his pocket and remove his hand from it to flatten it palm-down on the table. Very softly and slowly, I repeat, "I know."

I kiss his forehead. I tell him I love him as I doodle on the back of his hand, drawing my hat at a bird's-eye view, using two of the more obvious scars on his knuckle as the golden dangle parts. He finds this impressive and coos. When I'm done, I blow on his skin until it's dry, then take his hand and put it in my own pocket. Finally, I go back to my crossword puzzle.

"How'd it go at the clinic?"

"Good, actually," he replies.

"Really?" I ask.

"Really." He goes on explaining his morning, (mumbling mostly because Oliver De Luca is still Oliver Dr Luca) telling me about the new inhalers—I press my ear to his chest and listen to him breathe for a few seconds, hearing nothing but air. He tells me about the oatmeal, and the mirror therapy, and his crush on Denise (which he doesn't tell me but I figure it out anyway) and for the most part I'm grinning and resting my chin in my palms, listening to him talk and enjoying it. And it just feels really really good right now.

"She offered to be my therapist," he says, "but, I don't know if I want to."

"Why?" I ask.

"My dad was a shrink. He had this thing where he always talked to me like I was one of his clients. Like he wasn't really my dad. I dunno I'm just not into doing that again."

I regard this. "Denise isn't your dad."

Oliver shrugs. "I have you to talk to."

"But... I'm not very good at helping."

"That's not true," he tells me. "Stop saying that."

I look at him from the crosswords. "It's okay," I tell him. "I understand why."

He's frowning. "Why are you being so nonchalant about this?"

"I'm not," I tell him. "I mean it. I think it's a good idea for you to talk to her. She'll know how to help better than me."

"Oh."

"What?"

"It isn't nonchalance. You're just... being mature. Since when are you _mature?_ "

I snort.

"I mean, I know you are, Carl. But not about this stuff. I mean..."

"Oliver, chill," I say. He sinks into his seat. I smirk. "Sometimes talking to a stranger is easier, 'cause they don't really count. That's what Enid said, when she told me about when her and Nell first talked."

Oliver is still frowning.

"You should talk to Denise," I say.

He neither confirms or declines, instead says, "Kalon."

"Huh?"

He thumbs at number sixteen on my crossword puzzle, "Five across. Kalon. Beauty that is more than skin deep."

I thank him. I ask, "Is that with a C or a K?"

"K, man."

For a while I keep going. Oliver watches me. He tells me I narrow my eyes a lot. He tells me, "Even back at the prison, you'd narrow your eyes so much I couldn't tell if you were angry at me or not."

I snicker. "I was usually just angry at you."

"Why?"

"Because I was crushing on you."

Oliver pulls his eyebrows up. "I'd hate to know what you'd do to somebody you actually hated."

I look him dead in the eye and say, "I screw their brains out."

Oliver smacks his hand on the table and yells, "God dammit, you must hate me so much!"

We bust up laughing until out faces hurt _._

Oliver settles into a smile.

"What's up?" I ask.

He sighs, still smiling wanly. "I'm just... kind of an asshole."

"Glad you figured that out."

Oliver rolls his eyes. "I just... I messed up with Carol last night, and I'm too stupid to figure out how to fix it. After what I said. I just... I fucked up."

I'm quiet for a second. "You shouldn't blame yourself for that. She's got stuff going on."

"She talked to you?"

I shrug. Oliver exhausts himself and dips his head to the table again. It's a bad time to talk about this. I play with his hair to be of some comfort.

"I think I'm gonna cut it."

"Your hair?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"All of it?"

Oliver shrugs, sits up and pulls down his fringe. He frowns at it cross-eyed. "Maybe leave a little on top, or not, like a crew cut. It's just starting to mat now. Can't... brush it anymore. Just something easier to not drown in."

"I like drowning in it though," I whisper, and pull him forward, burying my mouth and nose in just to prove it. "See?"

"I look like a walker."

"You don't look like a walker," I tell him. "You look... rugged."

Oliver laughs. "Rugged?"

"Rugged," I say. "Strongly made and capable of withstanding rough handling. Six across."

Then he's laughing so hard he nearly falls forward under the table, but I push him up, grinning madly. "Found it," I whisper.

"What?"

"I found what tickles your funny bone."

"Don't you mean... punny bone," he says.

I close my eyes and grimace, exasperated, giggling somewhere in between. "What're you doin'?"

"What?! That's _my_ pun!"

"Yeah, from three months ago in a church. You mean to tell me in all that time you haven't come up with another pun yourself? Not one?"

"I have," he says. "Haven't I?"

"No."

"Whatever, I'm no good at puns. Never have been."

I narrow my eyes at him. "How are you so good at sarcasm?"

His eyebrows come up, fast. "Wait, I am?"

I laugh, spent.

"Holy shit, I'm good at sarcasm?" I swear to God, the amount of it in this very sentence turns my cheeks to jello. "I had no idea, man. We gotta go tell somebody!"

"Done," I announce. "I'm done with you. You're exhausting. We're breaking up." He laughs at me, then kisses me, and I kiss him back, slow and deep. I ask, "You okay?"

"Well, I just got dumped. So I'm pretty sure I should be crying, or... grovelling."

"It's okay," I whisper. "I really like you."

He's just grinning now.

I kiss the grin.

"But I mean it," Oliver says. He holds down his hair and tries to keep a straight face. "I need another cut. A real haircut."

I pull his hand away.

"I like your hair," I mumble. "I like your hair like I like pudding."

Oliver looks flattered.

"How come you never cut your hair?" he asks.

I shrug.

"I don't know," I answer, pulling his beanie back on his head for him. "My mom used to cut it." I recall the day Dad came back to the quarry, before it all, when Mom gave me a haircut:

 _"Baby, the more you fidget the longer it takes, so don't, okay?"_

 _"I'm trying!"_

 _"Well, try harder."_

 _It was cloudy and humid. Dale was up on the truck keeping watch, angry about his missing tools. I liked the way Shane had set up two tires against the camp fire. Thought it was cool._

 _"You think this is bad?" he said, "wait 'til you start shavin'." He was cleaning his rifle opposite us, sitting in one of those sad little yellow and white garden chairs. Smoke drifted between us. "Stings," Shane warned. "Days'll come when you'll be wishing for one o' your momma's haircuts."_

 _"I'll believe that when I see it," I said._

I see it. Now. And I believe it. Even without the shave.

"It's just weird; somebody else cutting it," I tell Oliver, who is watching me. "Wanna go for a walk?"

"Sure, man."

Outside, the air smells of rot and it's warm; the back of my head is hot under my hat as we come out of shade. Oliver is almost warm enough to want to take off his hoodie. Only Oliver doesn't do that anymore. Instead he takes my hand and we walk.

Near the east side, I'm tugged back suddenly. Oliver has stopped walking. I frown at him. He's staring up at something. I look too and watch ten green balloons float up through the sky.

Oliver staggers, legs almost buckling out beneath him, and he only doesn't fall because I yank him back.

"It's her?" His voice comes high and raspy. "It's her! It's Enid?"

"I don't know..."

"It's somebody," he whimpers. "It could be them. It could be all of them." _Glenn,_ I think, _Daryl, Sasha, Abraham, Enid, Nicholas..._

I squeeze his hand hard, and it settles both of us. We just watch the balloons float higher and higher across the sky, following the mid-day wind, and for this beautiful and serene moment, all I feel is hope. It puts a lump in my throat and a swell in my heart and a buzz through my whole body, and it's good and warm and something I hold on to...

But it slips.

Something cracks, groan—wood breaking. We look. We watch. And there is nothing anybody can do as the guard tower leans into the community like a lost game of Jenga.

"Carl..."

In the same moment my name stumbles out of him, I have time to register Oliver's hand tighten in mine, the way he yanks me backwards to run, again, only not like before, because this time we are not safe. We never really were. _God_. We hear it happen, but we don't look. _We know._ We know that the tower has fallen. We know it has crashed through the wall like a sledgehammer.

* * *

 **Notes**

I know that in the AU Oliver and Nell used to fool around together but that doesn't take away from her sexuality either. Also, Nell is very inspired by Margo from Paper Towns, I realise. I also think that's why Noah found her so fascinating, since he was reading it while he knew her. Like, she was that mysterious creature he hardly knew about but was hopelessly in love with.

Another disclaimer: The haircut conversation was mostly inspired by a Simon and Baz scene in Fangirl :] but I also really do want Oliver to get a haircut.

Reviews are happy-inducing, so many thanks if you leave one!

As always,  
Happy reading.


	9. Start to Finish: Tiptoe

**BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** The episode was EPIC! I was so excited! Thanks.

 **Anna Katharyn** Yeah, I really shipped Noellah. I'm tempted to write a one-shot for them but I'm holding back for when and if I get bored enough.

 **ImNotThatPerfect** Sure, I will definitely check it out soon. I've just been very busy lately with a mix of uni stuff, trying not to lose my mind, and writing excessively as a coping mechanism, and so I haven't read a lot of anything lately, as vain as it sounds, but I will!

 **Jr** Hey... I think we should be friends... Make and account and hit me up with a PM.

 **Biter Two** ThankS!

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

Carl and I hide behind a porch staircase, pinning our backs to the banister. Splinters stick through my shirt and fingers. Ron's here—I'm not sure where he came from. When the crashing stops finally, a dust cloud spreads all the way past us; we must be hundreds of yards away.

"We gotta go," Carl says.

"Ron, they're coming." He's hunched on the ground, clamping his hands over his ears.

"Ron!" Carl tries to yank him up. Ron shoves him away. He drops his gun. "Ron, we gotta go." Carl takes the gun and hands it back. Ron takes it. "Look," Carl urges. "I know you're scared. I... I know... okay? I am, too. But we gotta run now... Ron, please."

I grab him by the collar and shake.

" _Ron!_ Get the fuck up and _run!_ "

He does. We run. We hear Rick nearer the wall, yelling for everyone to get back. Carl yanks me back by my elbow and walkers spill around the corner ahead of me. We go the other way. I see Maggie by the guard post, Noah with her. Tobin running. Morgan running, too, with Carol.

"Oliver, come on!"

Growls fill everywhere, and I see Rick and Deanna ahead. Deanna's bleeding from her leg and side. Rick is shouting. Michonne is here, too, beheading a walker too close, and then Gabriel is here, and all of us are high-tailing it towards the first house for Judith, but walkers are surrounding both houses. There's a gunshot. It's Jessie. She takes down two more bodies.

"Come on!" she screams. "I have Judith!"

We all rocket inside her house. The door slams behind us and Jessie scrambles to lock it. Deanna is groaning. The rest of us don't waste time in boarding every window and door with whatever we can.

Music is playing from somewhere. Someone grabs my collar and I'm suddenly helping carry Deanna upstairs. She's moaning and bleeding and everybody is yelling.

 _'Come, tiptoe through the window  
By the window, that is where I'll be  
Come tiptoe through the tulips with me...'_

"This one on the right!" Jessie says.

"Oh, Jesus!" Deanna screams. She yanks my amp and I gasp.

 _'Tiptoe from your pillow  
To the shadow of a willow tree  
And tiptoe through the tulips with me...'_

"Go in there!" Rick, Michonne and I burst into the bedroom.

"Sam, I need you to turn off the music and shut the blinds!"

"Because of the monsters?"

 _'Knee-deep in flowers we'll stray  
We'll keep the showers away...'_

It's hard to focus. Somebody pushes me aside and I trip over Bean. I don't know how he got here. Sam grabs at him. A door frame is against my back. Rick pushes past me, grabbing me by the hoodie. He asks if I'm alright but rushes away before I think of what to say. Judith is screaming.

 _"_ You stay up here and you stay quiet it's gonna be okay," Jessie says. Sam is frowning, fingers tight into Bean's scruff.

"Mom."

"Honey, just try..." The small owl tattoo on her forearm jumps as she strokes his face. "Just pretend? Okay, just pretend that you're somebody who's not scared? Just try. Okay?"

"Okay."

She kisses his forehead. "I love you." Then she's rushing back out again, helping with Deanna. Judith's still screaming in Carl's arms. He grabs me and pulls me down the hallway at Rick's urge for us to give Deanna space.

We burst into Ron's room. He jumps, looking pale and sweaty. Carl pushes Judith into his arms. "Hold her. Wait here." He yanks me back out after him, ordering I help him bring her cot in from Sam's room.

"There's no way out."

"What?" Carl grunts, barely heard over the growling outside.

"There's no way out," I repeat, breathless. "Carl. Th... There's no way out."

"No," he bites. "You can't do this. Not now." I nod. "So get that end and come on."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, we're sitting in Ron's bedroom. Carl, Ron and I, in that order on the bed, facing the open door and watching the empty hallway. Judith is in her cot on the floor across from us.

Deanna was bitten. Rick told us a minute ago. Her fever's already set in. She's talking to Michonne now, in the next room.

"The Latin in the margins," Michonne says, "what was that?"

"It was something Reg used to say when things went really, really badly."

Ron gets up, leaves. I sigh. Carl says, "We should to talk to him..." I nod but neither of us move. Carl sighs. "Rock, paper, scissors?"

I glare at him.

He looks at his lap.

"It's probably my turn," I admit.

"It's okay," he says, standing up. "Keep an eye on her."

I nod, pulling off my beanie and raking the tangled hair back from my face.

"You've got a big forehead," Carl points out.

"No," I answer. "You just never see it."

Carl regards this. "I don't care. You're pretty either way."

I look up to him. I don't think he's ever called me that. "You're, err... Olivering."

Quickly, he tips down his hat and leaves. I pull my beanie back on and sit on the floor next to Judith. She puts her palm against the cot netting. I put mine up too, palm-to-palm with her.

"If I'm Peter, do you wanna be Tinker Bell?" She hums, pressing her face to the netting so her nose rubs up like a snout. "What do you think, hm?" I whisper. "Tink, or little ass kicker?"

Another gargle.

"We'll see," I say. "Maybe, Judy-Tink the little kicker of asses."

She sits back and sneezes. I reach in and wipe her nose with my sleeve, which she seems to appreciate.

"Molimer!"

I stare. "W...what?" I kneel closer. "Say that again, Judy?"

"Molimer!"

Either she just said my name of she's got her own skipping pixie called Molimer that I don't know about. Either way I'm blowing up like a balloon because Judith Grimes just said her first word.

"Rick... R—"

Something downstairs smashes. My knife's in my hand and I'm rushing out of the bedroom. Rick gets to the staircase first, Jessie after me. Michonne and Gabriel too. Downstairs the shouting is coming from the garage.

"Carl!" Rick screams, trying the door.

"It's locked?" I ask. Carl's yelling, walkers shriek in the distance.

"Ron!" Jessie screams. The growling gets louder. " _Ron, openthedoorrightnow!_ "

There's just crashing and banging and growling and yelling. Rick hacks at the door with his axe, and soon, the door is open and the next thing I'm aware of is Carl crashing into me, and the walkers are coming through the garage. We force the door shut. It shudders against them.

Rick lugs a couch over. We help hold it against the door but we need more and we need to be quiet. Michonne goes into the kitchen to find something. Gabriel heads for the living room.

I bash my arm and slip.

"Help," Carl begs.

"I got it," Jessie rasps.

"Hey, what happened in there?" Rick asks Carl.

"We were looking for tools, knocked over a shelf."

"We heard yelling," Jessie says.

"Yeah," Carl answers. "Ron saw them break through the gates. We had to move... That's what happened."

Ron steps over, says something about night-stands and he and Carl walk away together.

"Hey, hey—"

"What?" Ron hisses at his mom.

"—it sounded like you were fighting."

"Yeah, we were fighting _them._ "

"Carl," I whisper.

"It's okay?" Rick asks him.

"It's okay." He's lying. I know he is.

He and Ron disappear into the dining room and shut the door behind them. Michonne has come back with some boards so I leave them to it. I stand outside the dining room and listen.

"Carl, I'm sorry."

"Yeah. I know. Now gimmie the gun. Look, man, I get it. My dad killed your dad... but you need to know something. Your dad was an asshole."

The door opens. Carl walks right into me. His face drops. Ron leaves after him I square up to him. I grow, fill up the whole doorway.

"Oliver," Carl whispers.

I swipe my knife up from his stomach to his throat and let him spill at my feet, except it's only in my head. Outside my head, I just step aside, and Ron walks away.

Something smashes outside and I flinch. Carl takes my hand and I ask him, "Are you okay?" only he asks me the same question at the same time.

"I'm fine," I say.

"Little jumpy," he says, except he's talking about me I think. He hugs me. I squeeze tight. We pull away and go back into the hallway.

"They knocked the sculpture over," Jessie says.

"All that noise, it's drawing more," Michonne whispers.

Judith starts crying. Rick goes up to check her. The rest of us help Ron wedge a large night-stand against the garage door. Sam hasn't turned off the music.

 _'Tiptoe from your pillow  
To the shadow of a willow tree  
And tiptoe through the tulips with me...'_

The backdoor gives but Michonne and Gabriel are fast enough to shove a cabinet against it.

 _'Knee-deep in flowers we'll stray  
We'll keep the showers away...'_

"Oliver..." Jessie says, waving her hands. "Oliver, watch out!" And then something hard and heavy hits me. I collapse, clutching my skull. It was the cabinet. The others are rushing around me, grabbing me and shoving the cabinet back into place.

I'm so dizzy I fall to my knees. I must pass out for a second, because then someone is lugging my up the stairs and walkers are pouring into the house after us.

"Rick!" Jessie cries.

"Oliver, get up!"

I do. He pulls me with him upstairs. My head is throbbing. I need my inhalers. I look over the banister, sitting because my legs aren't listening to me.

"Block the stairs!"

They use the couch. It works. Carl rushes up to me, removing my beanie and yanking my head forward. "Ack!" "Your head." "I'm fine." "You're... There's a lump. I... I can't see any blood." "Move." "You need to lie down." "No, seriously, move..."

I yack across the floor and Carl jumps back.

"I'm okay," I say, trying to get to my feet. "I... I'm okay."

"God dammit, _do_ what I tell you for once! Sit down. _Now._ " I do, scowling. Carl tidies the floor as best he can with a rag from the bathroom.

"Sorry," I say, shutting my eyes.

"Don't be. You'd clean up my puke, right?"

I cough and swallow and try to keep my head still. "Totally, man."

* * *

Soon, the whole first floor of Jessie's house is filled with walkers. Gabriel is with Judith. Michonne and Rick are in Jessie's room, dissecting two walkers. Ron is standing over the staircase, keeping watch, and Carl is sitting across from me while Jessie tends to my head.

She cups my face in her hands. "Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere above my shoulders," I say, "pretty much."

She smiles and gently pulls my head down, separating my hair with her fingers. It aches. I glare at my beanie in my lap because if I don't I'll look down her shirt. Even with my efforts, my eyes don't listen to my head and I look. I apologise.

"For what?"

"Nothing," I say. Carl laughs—he, of course, knows what happened. I cringe. I mean, it's not like it's Jessie's fault.

Jessie hands me some pain pills from the bathroom. "Think you're a little concussed. Bruised. Take it easy, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Jessie goes and helps Michonne with the corpse.

"Oliver," Rick says. "You well enough to keep an eye on Deanna?"

I nod, getting up. "Rick?"

"Yeah."

"Bean. He's..."

"We'll cover him, too. All of him. Let him go before us. He'll either make it or he won't."

"Yes, sir."

"Carl, you stay here. You see any squeezing through, you get me. Hey, we're gonna need bed sheets, enough for everyone."

Carl _psst!_ s at Ron. Ron jumps, but gets to finding the bedsheets. I go check on Deanna. She's sleeping on the bed. The blinds bump the window when I sit on the window-ledge. Deanna stirs, but doesn't wake up.

Rick is talking to the others: "We all go to the armoury."

"How?" Jessie asks.

"We're gonna gut these things, cover ourselves with the insides. It'll mask our smell, make them think we're like them. I've done it before..." _Me, too._ "We stay calm, we don't draw attention, we can move right through them."

"They're in the house," Michonne says, "they're making noise. More are coming."

By the sounds of it, they get started.

"Anyone who stays here is gonna die," Rick says.

"What about Deanna?" Gabriel asks.

 _'Knee-deep in flowers we'll stray  
We'll keep the showers away...'_

Michonne walks into the room.

Deanna startles. She looks at Michonne and smiles Van Goughly. "What's happening out there?"

"They're getting in," Michonne explains. "The rest of us are gonna have to go. If you want me to, I'll—"

"No... Not ready. Not yet. I will be. Soon. And when I am." She raises her revolver. "I'll do it myself. It's my life. Start to finish. _Dolor hic tibi proderit olim._ "

"What does it mean?" Michonne asks.

Deanna touches Michonne's cheek. "Someday this pain will be useful to you."

I leave and close the door behind me. I don't feel good, like I'm panicking again.

 ** _Focus.  
_** _I'm gonna explode.  
 **Calm the fuck down and focus.  
** I can't.  
 **Just pretend that you're somebody who's not scared.**_

"Oliver?"

I startle and stand up straight. Carl isn't supposed to leave his post so he watches me instead. I pull myself together.

"I'm fine," I tell him.

He nods, but I don't think he believes me, but he doesn't say so because Michonne leaves Ron's room. She hugs me. I don't know why. I think she needs it.

"C'mon, boys."

We follow her into Jessie's room. Everyone's already coating themselves in walker guts. Carl, Michonne and I are handed bed sheets. We cut holes for our heads, then get to coating ourselves too. I'm almost used to the smell by now; it's the consistency that messes me up.

"Try to think about something else," Michonne tells me.

"How do you know what am I thinking about?" I ask.

Carl un-sticks his fingers and says, "You better not be thinking about throwing up again."

"Come on, man," I say.

"Think of something else," Michonne repeats.

"Strawberry sundaes," I groan, "and... and pudding... oh no."

Carl is fast. He grabs Judith and pulls me to face the bed, and I empty the remaining contents of my stomach across the pillow and bedside table. He's rubbing my spine, just like Carol did that day; using the opportunity to wipe more guts over me. I shove his hand away and yack up again.

"You asshole— _Huurk!_ I hate you." I spit and I turn to the others, wiping my mouth. "Sorry... err, your bed."

She looks ready to cry. "It's okay."

Then Bean is here. He sniffs at my hands and steps away in disgust, but I am quick enough to grab him. Carl helps me coat him, too.

"Mom?"

Sam is standing in the doorway. Jessie rushes over to him. "You need to listen to me, okay? We aren't safe here anymore. Okay, we need to do this so that we can be safe out there. We need to look like the monsters."

"No, please, no."

"Yes, honey, we have to go, okay? We have to, Sam." He's crying. "Honey, just... just pretend you're brave. Okay? Just make it all pretend. Okay, none of this is real and you're somebody who isn't afraid. Okay?"

"Okay."

* * *

Bean made it out of the house, which was promising. The sun is setting. Carl and I are in the bathroom. He's redoing my bandage; it's come loose again. The door is open and occasionally somebody will rush past for something. The growling is loud and getting worse.

"I love you," I whisper.

Carl frowns, concentrating. Outside there's still day-light but at this time in the evening the whole world looks grey and brown. Even his eyes look dull.

"Put your finger here... Okay, done. Come on, they're waiting for—" I grab his hand before he walks away. Carl sighs. "I'm not saying it back, Oliver."

"Why?"

He touches our foreheads and his hand comes up under the rag against my chest, pressing flat against my sternum.

" _Why?_ " I ask again.

"Because... it's just another way of saying goodbye."

I look at him. "What if—"

"No."

"—What if it _is?_ I didn't get to say goodbye to my family. Maybe... Maybe it's alright to... to say goodbye."

"No!" He's crying, like he doesn't even notice. "It never... It never changes anything. It still hurts. You can know it's about to happen and you can be right there, right with them... and you can listen to them say it to you. You can even say it back. But it doesn't change anything. It still hurts."

I dip my head and shut my eyes.

"I lied to Enid yesterday," Carl confesses, leaving a smudge of gut as he wipes hid cheek. "I told her that you couldn't cope with another goodbye... but it's me... _I_ can't, Oliver. Not again."

I kiss him.

He pulls away.

"We're _getting out_ of this. So take my hand." He grabs it. "And don't let go. Alright?"

 _'Knee-deep in flowers we'll stray  
We'll keep the showers away.'_

"Alright."

We head out into the landing, meeting the others.

"We have to go," Rick tells us.

"We're ready," Jessie says. "Ron?"

"Yeah."

"I'll get Judith," Rick says.

"Rick," Gabriel says. "I'm not gonna give up out there. I will not turn back, no matter what happens."

"Yeah, I know."

Rick returns with Judith and hides her under Carl's sheet. Carl buttons up his shirt around her and tucks it into his belt for extra security. Without a word, we descend the staircase, heads down, mouths shut. Rick goes first, then Judith and Carl, me, Jessie, Sam, Ron, Gabriel and Michonne. Jessie's hand is shaking around my amputation. Walkers hiss in our ears. We're on the porch. A walker cuts right between me and Carl and we let go of each other. This walker's particularly nasty; chattering its teeth violently.

 _Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap!_

My shoulders come up and I wait for it to go away. It does. When I'm safe enough to look at Carl, he's staring at me and his eyes are wet. _Close one._ I look out over the community. Walkers fill the streets. Not a foot between each all over.

Finally, Rick's hand links with mine. He'd been aiming for Carl but doesn't seem to want to rectify this. He nods. Carl holds onto my sleeve. Jessie takes Carl's other hand and so forth after her.

We walk.

 _Come, tiptoe through the front door  
With the walkers, that is where we'll be  
Come tiptoe through the dead streets with me_

 _Tiptoe from your safe-house  
To the dead arms of a walker herd  
And tiptoe through the dead streets with me_

 _Knee-deep in their blood we'll stray  
We'll keep the walkers away_

 _And if I kill them, holding your hand  
While they chase us  
Will I keep you safe?  
Come tiptoe through the dead streets with me..._

"Mom?"

* * *

 **Notes**

IMPORTANT (to me) MESSAGE:

I've been accepted into university. Thanks for existing and reading and being and letting me express myself through this crapshit story, among others. You honestly have no idea how grateful I am these two years. I'd never have had the confidence to even apply to uni without the support. Thank you so much, you, reading this, right now, new or not. You have quite literally changed my life and I can never repay you for it.

Guess Nell wasn't kidding when she said flowers turn to blood.

 **Preview: Eye don't know yet...**

As always,  
Happy reading.


	10. No Way Out: Lost Girl

**Anna Katharyn** yeah I know but the song Sam played was by Lucas.

 **Luna de Octubre** I was going to reply back in Spanish but Google Translate sucks and I figured you read the story fine so I'll just reply in English: No, that's totally okay if you don't comment a lot. Just you reading blows me away. Yeah, hopefully you enjoy. I'm happy with how it came out. Btw, my pet whippet's name is Luna.

 **DarthGranola** Thank you!

 **JRH18** can't wait to see what you think.

 **fandomismylife** never apologise! Yeah, I wasn't sure how I felt about a OMCxCarl either but it turned out ok. I was meant to kill Oliver on the twelfth chapter of the first book but like my only few followers back then on the other site said not to so I kept going and it's now become my favourite story. Thank you, it means a lot you like him so much. it's such a thin line on making a good oc. really? I was worried that Mirror Therapy would be a boring chapter. So thank you! That means a lot. you're awesome! I'll look after Bean... and oml, long reviews are my fanfiction paycheck.

 **ImNotThatPerfect** *insert explosion* I'vebeenwaitingforthisalmostsinceIstartedwritingthis...

* * *

 **Carl~**

* * *

Sam quietens down when he realises he'll die if he doesn't. We walk across the community and stop near the lake to regroup.

"Alright, new plan," Dad says. "Flares and a few guns aren't enough. Too many walkers. Too spread out. We're not goin' to the armoury. We need our vehicles back at the quarry. All of us drive. Needa' round'm up. We leave. We come back."

"But Judith," Jessie says. "To the quarry and back, I..."

Dad pinches his nose.

"I'll take her," Gabriel whispers. "I'll keep her safe in my church until you all get the walkers away." Rick nods. He looks like he might cry.

"Can you do this?" Michonne asks.

"I'm supposed to," Gabriel whispers. "I have to. I will."

"Alright," Dad says. I carefully hand my sister over. Gabriel puts his sheet over her and tucks her close against his chest.

"Take Sam," Jessie whispers.

"No."

"Yes, Sam. It'll be safe."

"I'm not leaving you."

"Sam."

"Mom, I'm not. I can keep going. I can keep going." Sweat makes his fringe stick in clumps against his forehead. "Please. Please, let's just go."

"Okay..."

Gabriel carries Judith through the herd. Oliver takes my hand. I look at him, my throat dry. He nods.

"He's gonna make it, okay?" Jessie tells Dad. "I know it."

"Sam..." Dad whispers. He takes his hand. The rest of us link up too. I have to brush Ron's wrist.

"Come on."

* * *

Soon it's dark. It happened slowly and then suddenly, like falling asleep or reading a book. Only the dark isn't so nice. I think I'm afraid of it. A rational fear, I figure. The darker it is, worse are the things that are hiding in it. Thinking too much about it turns my muscles to pulp and my mouth to sand paper.

Eyes open.  
Mouth shut.  
Hands closed.  
Keep walking.  
Listen.  
Feel...

Eyes open.  
Mouth shut.  
Hands closed.  
Keep w—

We're stopped.

Sam.

His eyes are shut.  
He's crying.  
He's let go.  
He's not walking.

"Sam..."

His eyes snap open, but he's not looking at Jessie. Across the street is a boy, a walker, and Sam is staring at him.

"Oh no," I hear from Oliver.

"Sam," Jessie whispers again. "Come on. Sweetheart."

"Sam," Dad, or maybe Ron, maybe Oliver, I don't know. Maybe even me. "Sam..."

He's stepping away, but Jessie keeps hold of his hand.

"Let's go." "Can't." "Yes you can. Sam, come on." "Come on, Sam." "Hey, you can do this. Hey, just look at Mom." "Honey, you can do it."

Sam whimpers just once before rotten, spindly fingers wind around his chest and face. He screams. Hands latch to his waist. Legs. Arms. _Tearing_. Sam keeps screaming—" _MOM!"—_ even while one walker sinks its teeth into the side of his mouth. Jessie's screaming too. I beg her to be quiet, to come with us, to let go of his hand, to let go of mine.

The walkers get her, too.

"Dad," I mutter. Ron is pulling me—no, _Oliver_ is pulling him. Pulling so hard I'm getting torn. I catch a glimpse of the horror in his face, both of their faces, and then I'm watching my father raise his axe, and with three blows through Jessie's forearm I fall back against the road. I shake her hand off. Growls drown us. I stand, catch my breath, look around for my family. Michonne's okay, guarding us. Dad, too. Oliver is beside him, eyes black, mouth open, his face blood-splattered and petrified. He's staring at me. I want to tell him I love him and it scares me worse than the dark, only I don't get to say anything.

I turn around. Ron is standing a few feet away, glaring down a gun — _my gun_ — that is aimed at my father's face.

" _You..._ " He looks wet and small and far away. " _You..._ "

Dread turns my brain to pulp. It's two hours ago: I'm grinning at Oliver while he talks on and on about his day, making bad puns and doodling on his hand. Then it's two years ago: I'm twelve and pulling clumps of flour out of badly-made pancakes while Mom's not looking. Dad's caught me but he doesn't reprimand me. And I'm thinking how much I love him. How I want to be just like him. How he'll be so proud of me one day. And now: I'm about to watch him die.

It happens in a blink. So fast. I hear the sharp _shlik!_ and watch the red end of Michonne's katana break through his sternum. In almost the same second, I hear the shot fire, see the flash and feel the crack, and then... _and then..._ something very strange is happening to me. Maybe. I don't... I don't know. I'm not... There's something... something on my face. I can't... Dad. I... I turn to him... Maybe... lift my head to see him... under my hat... and there's... wet... something wrong... I feel it but not see it.

Not see...  
...my eye.

" Dad? "

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

I'll never have the words to describe how it feels, what it is like, what things go through my head — as I watch Carl Grimes collapse to the ground in a pool of his own blood.

It takes a second to process that Ron has shot him through the face. _The face._ I will never forget Rick's face though, all twisted up and full to burst. Not crying, or if he is then it isn't the regular kind. There's this terrible gaping hole replacing where Carl's right eye should be. What was electric blue is now dripping crimson. Bone and flesh jut outward in jagged angles. The bullet travelled through, I can see that. _God._ A whole front section of his face is just... _gone_. My breath is heaving. My heart is taking over. My brain is screaming itself out through my skull. His blood, in his hair and hat and filling the tiny dents in the road. And I'm just staring.

Rick pulls him up. He's moving. I'm standing here, thinking: _If you just... just wait... if you'd all just wait. I can think us away. _Then I'm not inside of myself, watch from somewhere else as we all run. I see myself killing walker after walker, clearing the way. Michonne, too. Auto-pilot. Rick is carrying his son, my best friend, and the clinic door is open before we get there.

Denise waves us all inside. I miss the step, stagger and spin and fall back into myself. I get up. I help shut the door behind us.

"Is it a gunshot?"

"Handgun. Close range."

Rick lays his son down on the operating table. I touch it. It's cold. _Put me back on the table,_ I beg the universe. _Let it be me._

Watching him bleed brings on another panic attack. I turn and grip the bookshelf. Denise is yelling, fiddling with things. The main lights switch on. I clamp my eyes, wishing everybody would just be _quiet_ a moment.

"It's gonna draw them here," Spencer is saying. And Denise is yelling: "I need quiet! Michonne, towel. You need to keep pressure on the wound. Just like that, right there." And Rick is whispering, "Please... please... no."

I clamp my hands over my ears, hearing muffles about IVs and maybe my name and then the walker-gut rag is pulled off over my shoulders. Aaron is looking at me, telling me things, pulling my hand down. More sound rushes me like a flood.

Then the door is open and Rick is marching outside.

"What are you doing?" Denise says. A swell of blood forces her attention back to Carl. It's pouring off the table.

"RICK!" Michonne roars. " _RICK!_ "

But he's gone.

 _Plan. Need a plan.  
 **What is it then?  
** That. That's the plan.  
 **What – go out there and kill yourself?  
** If that's what it takes._

I go after him, knife in hand, but Heath yanked me back. I shake him off. He grabs me again. "Kid, _don't!_ " I hit him across the sternum with my elbow and he stumbles.

"Oliver!" Michonne warns. " _Stop!_ "

"Oliver, I need your help here!" Denise says. She has something small and sharp and shiny in her hand. I don't know what she's doing with it. "Help Spencer with the IV set up. Aaron, Heath, keep watch."

We do as we're told.

"Rick's out there!" Michonne rasps. She's pressing against the Carl's face.

"Hold on," Denise says.

"He needs my help!"

"Just one more suture," Denise reassures. Awkward Denise is gone now. Now it's all careful confidence.

"He's out there!"

"This is his _son._ Give me a second."

A few minutes pass while we all work. Heath is looking out the window, watching Rick, I guess. "We have to go get him," he says finally.

"What?!" Spencer hisses.

"We have to," Heath insists, glancing at me. "This is it."

 _Time to take this place back..._

"I think we've got it," Denise says, stepping away from Carl to get another tool. Michonne kisses the boy's forehead and grabs her katana, and then the door is open and the five of us are rushing outside.

"Do you..." Michonne slashes her katana all the way through a walker's skull. "...see him?"

"No," Heath pants, tearing through another walker with his machete. I take down another; pushing it back, knocking it down with a sneaker to its knee-cap, then finishing it with Lizzie's knife through the back of its neck.

"There!" Aaron shouts.

I see him too: axe in hand, bull-dozing through the herd. Michonne saves his life when one gets too close, and I save hers when one gets too close to her. We collect in a circle. Backs facing.

"Stay on your toes!"  
"Keep in formation!"  
"Knock them away!"  
"Drive them down!"  
"Take them out!"

More walkers die and more people join us. Olivia. Eric. Barbara. _Sluk!_ Bruce. Kent. Eugene. Noah. Rosita. Tara. _Crack._ Morgan. Carol. Gabriel. Tobin. _Bashk._ Until it's almost the whole community. Shots are being fired on the east Side. _Shak._ Or maybe the north. _Shuvk!_ I can't tell with so many of them. We keep hacking. Dripping in old blood. More shots go off in the distance; a machine gun this time. And then—

 _FWOOMP!_

The sky glows, and the whole lake is on fire. Walkers follow it. They burn or drown. I see Daryl, Sasha, Abraham, Glenn, parking a Pattrick Propane truck by the water. Daryl's standing on top with a bazooka. I keep fighting with everybody. We keep going. We don't stop until it's over.

* * *

The sun is hot. The day had started a long time ago and our clothes are crusty and stale. Some of us are dead and the rest of us feel close to it, but we won.

Corpses litter the street. The fire went out a while ago. I ache all over. I feel ill and backwards but it helps when Carol takes my shoulders in her arms and holds me. We go back to the clinic. For a while I sit by Carl's side. He'd dropped his hat, before—I'll find it later. I relay last night in my head. I saw Ron pick up the gun. I thought...I don't know. I didn't think at all. I was so afraid, and Jessie and Sam were screaming so loud. My guard was up so much there was a gap right under it, so the bullet got through and shot my best friend.

I'm glaring at my hands. They're bloody and shaking. They haven't stopped shaking. I wonder if they ever will. I rub them, rub off blood and ink but not the shaking.

"Oliver," Rick murmurs across the bed, holding his son's hand. Carl's other hand is in front of me, empty... I'm afraid to touch it. "Go clean up. Upstairs. Your chest doesn't sound too good either. Denise'll get you some inhalers."

I look at Carl. A clean bandage is wrapped around his head, covering his right eye socket. His skin is so pale.

"G'on, son," Rick says.

I go.

"Do you think he'll make it?" Noah asks me on the second-floor landing, grabbing a towel out of the closet for me. I frown at him. "Bean, I mean."

I exhale and shrug.

Noah stretches his lips and raises his chin. "He'll be okay," he says—that damned optimism. "He's survived worse." I don't say anything, I just lean against the bathroom door, wanting to be alone. Noah doesn't notice. "Hey, did she ever tell you how he lost it? His eye?"

I just shrug again.

"Nobody knows," Noah says. "Nell and her sis hadn't seen him in weeks. But, one mornin', he jus' showed up with his eye hanging out."

I wince.

"Sorry," Noah says.

Another shrug.

"Hey. Thank you. For everything you did while we were out. The Wolves... They killed my family. Now they're all dead and it's because of you and everyone who fought them. So, yeah, thanks... I owe you one... Well, no, I owe you a lot, but, that's one more."

I nod.

"But who's keepin' count?"

I don't answer. Finally, Noah steps aside. I head into the bathroom. While showering, I stand there and re-live last night in my head again: Sam's trigger, the walker boy, his worst fear right there across the street. I put that in his head.

I sit down and curl up against the wall. The tears don't come. I'm numb. Numb and on auto-pilot like it still hasn't worn off from last night, maybe even since I lost Patrick in that candy store. I get this feeling like I've never really been _here,_ in my own head and body, in months. I think of yesterday, how I hurt myself and felt better somehow, and this is how I start to pinch myself. It's awful. But like before, it works. It makes the pain in my head dull to a tolerable amount and I am calm and steady and _here_ again.

There's a knock at the door and I jump.

"You've been a while, are you okay? "

"Enid?"

Nobody answers me.

"Err... Yeah! Out in a sec." I switch off the shower and dry off quickly. My arms and stomach ache. I see my skin already turning purple and blue. It looks bad. People will notice, so I button up my flannel and roll the sleeve down, making sure my bandage is spread out up my whole forearm. I have to give up de-tangling my hair, instead simply pulling it all back and under my beanie.

I open the bathroom door. Water drips down my forehead, dampening my hoodie while I pull it on.

I watch her grab a pale blue towel from the closet before heading downstairs. She doesn't see me, and in all honesty, I'm not entirely sure that I've even seen her either.

As I walk downstairs, I half expect to see living smoke or floating pirate ships, or I'll look outside and in the trees will be a nest of pixies— _'and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.'_ She isn't in the main clinic room, or the kitchen. It's quiet. I can see tired figures sitting outside on the porch through the windows. Maggie is on a bed resting her leg injury. Glenn is comforting her. Michonne is holding Judith in the doorway to Carl's room.

Abraham walks past me, pats my shoulder, grunts. I step over to Daryl. He's getting treated by Denise for the stab wound on his shoulder-blade. It cut part of a wing on his waistcoat.

He's using a pale blue towel to wipe his hands.

"Outside," Daryl answers my unasked question. He smiled, maybe—it's hard to tell. "G'on..."

I go. Carol's there, too, and Rosita, Aaron and Eric. Others... Enid is knelt on the porch seat, her knee-cut jeans ripped and her red flannel and borrowed hoodie slumped at odd angles on her shoulders. Her hair is tangled and greasy. Her nose is red, eyes too, bagged. She looks small and muddy and sad.

She knows.

"Hi..."

I just sit next to her and then we are hugging and that's when the tears come—from me or her first, I can't say for sure. We hold onto each other tightly with fists clenched into hoodies and our chests racking, until finally, we make room for the hurt.

* * *

In the late morning, Enid is still holding my hand. We have a blanket now, and some coffee and oatmeal to share. I've never seen Enid actually eat before, as odd as that is. Soon I learn that she eats with her free hand up, wrist popped back, and her fingers coiling against each other. I want to ask questions but there are too many to decipher through.

Neither of us say a word.

It's another day, which means another two pages. I grab Nell's notebook and read an entry that stretches all the way across both pages.

 _'Lost boy'_ is its title.

 _'You have always been quiet, lost boy. You avert your eyes from a conversation, and pick silence over speaking your mind. It protected you when kids laughed and pointed and told you that you were different. Because you were, a bright and colourful M &M in a whole world of stale. And eventually, after long enough, you taught yourself to be stale too. Then, after the turn, after you lost your family, your staleness kept you alive, but I think, with that, your quietness swallowed you whole. You became so quiet that you almost shrank away completely. But someone found you, hidden in your staleness. Thing is he was stale too. But you helped each other. You allowed each other to be, in your own unique and flawless way._

 _The thing with being stale for a large part of your life is that it left you with a lot of unexplored personality. So it all came out in that, through your friend and through that love you both shared together. Your friend helped you to feel not so alone, not so different, not so wrong. He showed you that it was easy to remember that you were alive when you had his heartbeat against your own, because you weren't so lost after all._

 _When you cut your palm all that time ago before the world ended, your wound stretched all the way up to your thumb. You and I both know the mark will never go away, but it doesn't mean you're not still growing around it. Your scar, your quietness, every day it gets smaller compared to the rest of you._

 _But that protective staleness is still there. It may not seem so but it is, and it's necessary. It's still keeping you alive for one day, when the hurt comes back—it always does. You will lose people you love and every time you will lose a part of yourself along with them. That's just how it works. But understand this. You'll need the people who are still around, the ones who haven't been lost yet, and it'll take a long time, and you'll need to remember how to smile again, but eventually the lost pieces of you will come back._

 _You won't be too far gone._

 _And when that happens, it is going to be the best thing you'll ever do.'_

Enid was reading too. She exhales. "You've got nothing to do with Peter Pan and she still manages to fit you into it."

I smile but I think I'm crying too.

"She usually calls you Peter—don't know if you know that, but, you probably do."

I nod.

"To her, you alternate between the two," Enid goes on, "a lost boy or Peter. But, I guess Pan was kinda both anyway, huh."

I wipe my face and shrug, sniffing.

 _You'll need the people who are still around, the ones who haven't been lost yet._

"Y'know? I'm a lost boy, too," Enid says, almost sweetly. "I mean, sure, I'm a girl, but whatever."

I close the notebook and tuck it into my jeans. Enid takes a steep breath and brushes a lock of hair behind her ear. I stretch. I hear the cracking in my back, all the way up.

I take Enid's hand. She asks what I'm doing. I draw the letters JSS onto her palm and she stares at it. I look at everybody around us. They all look tired and worried. Enid sniffs.

"Okay," she says.

* * *

 **Notes**

Thank you **AwkwardlyMeOli** for the pixie quote.

Disclaimer: Nell's Lost Boy story was HEAVILY inspired by zefrank1's amazing Youtube video called "If you are in a shell..." and was not my full creation.

P.S. Just feel like I need to put this out there: if anybody is effected by anything I write about (like struggles with sexuality, identity, mental health, an existential crisis... uh... idk, I don't know your life story, maybe some asshole shot you in the eye or cut off your hand, maybe idk!) Just if you're struggling with anything at all, or you just want somebody to chat to, please feel free to message me here or tumblr and we'll talk about the weirdest dream you've ever had or your biggest fear or the funny thing your pet hippo (itwasthefirstanimalIthoughtofokay...) did today, anything, just know that I'm a pair of eyes that's willing to read, armed with a keyboard and an alarming amount of feathers (I like to collect them on walks with my whippet) okay, yeah, I'm done now.

As always,  
Happy reading.


	11. The Next World, Part 1: Amnesia

Shoutout to **train-wreck101** on Tumblr for your amazing fanart!

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding**!

 **AwkwardlyMeOli** Lost boys forever.

 **fandomismylife** aha... totally intentional, aha... _in truth I was just sat in the dark while writing that and I had a lot of feelings..._ zefrank1 really is amazing. YOU'RE HIPPO SOUNDS MAGNIFICENT.

 **DarthGranola** thank you.

 **ImNotThatPerfect** Thank you!

 **The Flash Fanatic** Me: heart _broken -_ but in this really nice warm fuzzy feelzy way.

 **fede** THANK YOU FOR THE DRAWING I LOVE YOU.

 **The Sorrowful Deity** Ahh! Thank you so much! can't wait to see what you think!

 **Biter Two** Thank you. I adore you.

 **AGGXX5** they probably look like quite a pair. One missing hand and another missing eye, and with Bean, with his own missing eye, too..

* * *

 _Keep an open mind for this one..._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _Seven months later..._

* * *

 _Sometimes I wish for falling  
Wish for the release  
Wish for falling through the air  
To give me some release  
Because falling's not the problem  
When I'm falling I'm at peace  
It's only when I hit the ground  
That causes all the grief..._

"Here," Enid says, "Oliver. Take my hand."

She's led across the gazebo roof, reaching over the edge. I squint, lock our fingers, and when she pulls I try my hardest to climb but my feet scuff against the wood and I run out of hands to take hold of anything.

" _Ah,_ Enid!"

"Hold on. I got you!"

But she doesn't, so I fall. " _Aruckh_!" I hit the ground hard. A dirt cloud comes up around me, like I'm some tiny atomic bomb. Bean fusses—he survived that day, came back a few weeks after. Just showed up, skin and bone, sitting on a car roof outside the gate.

"Oliver! OhmyGod."

" _Ughhh..._ That hurt... a bunch."

Enid curses. "Wait, I'll climb down. We'll try another way."

" _Oddio, questo fa male._ " I push myself up and cough. She kneels in front of me, frowning—Enid doesn't like it when I speak Italian; she thinks I'm talking about her. I'm not. "I think it's time to accept that I'm just very bad at climbing, Enid."

"You get over the wall okay."

"Slowly," I say.

She sighs. "He's gonna make us go out there again, huh?"

I shrug.

"Can't you talk to him?" she asks.

"Can't you?"

She glares. "Just because you aren't boyfriends anymore it doesn't mean he won't listen to you. You're still friends."

"So are you," I say.

"You know what I mean."

"I do," I say, "but the difference is, I _like_ going out there. _You_ don't. This is _your_ problem."

She sighs and resigns herself. "Okay."

She's still looking at me.

"What?" I ask.

"He still likes you, you know that, right? The amnesia didn't change that."

"Enid," I whisper. "Leave it."

She sighs.

"Alright."

* * *

A lot's changed since the herd came. The bullet went through his eye and out through his temple, damaging the small part in his brain that remembers things. The day Carl woke up, the only person Carl knew was his father. But it was temporary. _Temporary._ I held a lot of hope into that word. After a few hours, I knew of the walkers and his mother's death and Judith, some stuff about the prison. It wasn't everything. It wasn't me... but it was something.

His perception was messed up too, is still. But worse at the start. He found it hard to walk, would stumble and walk into things. He jumbled sentences, stuttered, and sometimes his voice wouldn't sound like his voice, like he'd mixed up several accents by accident. He'd forget instructions right after someone said them or he'd get an injury the pain signals in his brain were so jumbled that he and wouldn't notice until someone pointed out he was bleeding. It was bad. He'd say so himself, "I'm not working right, am I?"

He quickly learned who I was to him, but from word, not memory.

"His time-line is jumbled. Just... a lot."  
"It's hard for him to tell what's real or not."  
"He'll get there."  
"Just, give him time, Oliver..."

 _Yes, yes, I know, alright? I am!_

The funerals were held the day after Carl woke up. Nell was never found. I was angry about that. For a few weeks, I didn't leave my room a lot.

"You gonna stay in bed for the rest of your life?"

"Maybe."

"Why?"

"It's nicer under here."

In the end, Noah got so sick of the smell that he got Daryl to physically drag me into the bathroom and lock me inside—"Get in the shower, boy! And brush your goddamn teeth while you're at it!" So, I did.

Carl was starting physical therapy. People were doing their best for him, but I wasn't involved a lot at the start because it wasn't my place to anymore. I think he got a little sick of how many people were trying to help him. I think that's why he started hanging out with me again, to get away from it.

He's help me tend to Bean, who was still recovering from an infected shoulder he'd sustained after escaping Alexandria. I didn't talk a lot, but I don't think Carl minded. We'd read comics and listen to music CDs I'd bring him. That was nice. But it wasn't all... Rick calls it, "The Law of Averages." So the part that wasn't so nice was the guilt I felt, the days I'd spend getting all sad and miserable when we were meant to be doing something fun. Those times would annoy him. He'd narrow his eyes and it would be like it always was when he'd do that—I didn't know what he was feeling. Not until one day he told me: "You think it's your fault," he said, "why I don't have an eye. That's why you hurt yourself."

I didn't even know he knew. I think he must've told someone, because it wasn't long after that, that Denise began counselling me. She'd say, "It's a coping mechanism." And then other people were treating me differently too. Gabriel once told me, "I'm sorry for what happened. I know how much you care him." And Rick kept looking at me like he was afraid he wouldn't see me again. But it got a little better over time. Most of the time therapy does help, really, even if 'help' just means that I can look at flowers without wanting to cry or sleep a full night without a nightmare or sit on a utility room floor without having a panic attack.

Enid helps a lot too, especially at the start. It was her idea to go into the forest first. We'd spend whole days there sometimes, by our hollow tree. We even renovated the area a little. We brought a locker out to keep our stuff in and carved our initials into tree trunks. The forest became our safe-place. Or, mine at least. I think Enid has her own secret place out there, somewhere she doesn't tell anybody about, even me. It's in her head like a brain nest, I think; she goes there with her notebook, sits next to me, and doesn't come out for hours.

One time, I asked her why she didn't run away anymore.

"It's called character development." She shrugged. "It happens in real life, too, apparently." She laughed. "I don't know. I'm just... done... always running from my problems. You still lose people, even after they're gone. I didn't know what that meant before, but Glenn told me. He said, _'The people you love. They made you who you are. They're still a part of you. And, if you stop being you that last bit of them that's still around inside of who you are... it'll be gone.'_."

I remember feeling that feeling like right before I cry, but I held it in.

"I think you're lucky," she told me, "you haven't lost him. He isn't gone. Things are just... different."

There was this strange moment then. I suddenly felt like I'd been waiting my whole life to hear that.

" _'Faith without works is dead',_ " she said, smiling a sad smile. "Says that at the chapel. James: two– I don't know, _something_."

"Right," I said, feeling small and overwhelmed and comforted. Sometimes Enid's like some divine holy spirit or something; a messenger of hope and wisdom. It's sad she'd never believe me if I told her that.

"Do you believe in God?" she asked me.

"I... I think so," I answered—decided, right then and there.

"I think I want to," she said. "I mean, I am Jewish and all, so, maybe I should get back into it."

"Dad was Jewish," I said. "Mom was Catholic. When Pat and I came along they sorta let us decide ourselves. Patrick once told me he'd found his faith in porn." Enid laughed, then asked me what I'd found my faith in. I said, "Comics."

I think it was that day Carl found us out there. That was a bad day. It was in August, I think. "You come here without me?" He was furious. "I thought we were friends. _All_ of us." I was furious too. When Enid tried to apologise, I got between them and shoved him back. I was so... _angry._ "This is _our_ place," I said. " _Our place!_ " I wanted him to scream at me, hit me, tell me, _You promised me!_ but he didn't say a word. He didn't remember.

It was only then that I understood there was something more awful than being in love with someone who doesn't love you back. Hurting them. That was worse.

Carl got up and walked away.

That evening, I caught Carl looking through my room. He had the photo of us kissing and I walked in on him with it.

"I knew you had it." He didn't seem embarrassed or ashamed, but I was.

"Put it back!"

" _Relax,_ " Carl said. I snatched it. "Oliver, it's fine."

"It's mine! You're not allowed to look through my stuff."

"Sorry." He sighed. "Penelope took it, right? That morning you... uh..."

"I got bit and lost my hand," I said curtly, "yeah. And _–God–_ everybody calls her Nell, alright? You'll make no sense if you keep calling her that." I put the picture back in the drawer and slammed it shut. "Anyway, it doesn't matter now, she's dead."

"Stop that! Stop _correcting_ me, like it's my fault that I can't remember things. It's. _Not._ My. _Fault..._ I am _trying._ But I got brain damage and I forgot things. _Important_ things. I _know_ that, so stop _blaming_ me for it."

I had a whole storm in my chest, ready to burst.

"And you called her Penelope, too, before," he said, "I remember that. You saw that she'd changed and you accepted it and called her Nell." I didn't know he knew this. We never even talked about it. "Accept me, too," Carl insisted, cheeks red. "Alright?"

I felt small and teary. Carl wad going to walk away. I said, "You can come with us into the forest, if you want. I... I'm sorry we didn't take you with us. I'm sorry I get mad at you, okay? I'm sorry."

He just looked at me and nodded. "You and Enid meet me by the solar panels tomorrow at noon, and we'll go."

I nodded.

We've been okay since then.

Carol and I are okay now, too. I talked to her. I said, "I was afraid. That's why I said all that stuff. I... I thought I meant it, and, I guess I did... but, I don't want to mean it. I was— _am_ afraid. Of losing you. Of losing my family. _Our_ family. But I _want_... I want to believe in this place. I want to make it a home. I want to be happy here and, even more than that, I want you to be happy here, too."

Her took my hand. She felt cool and smooth and familiar. It wasn't a _yes_ or a _no_. I don't even know if it was a _one day_. But it was something, and that was the best I could ask for.

"The things we fear the most have already happened to us," I told her. She wiped her cheek on her shoulder. I let myself smirk. "I didn't come up with that, by the way. Heard it in some movie."

Carol laughed, and then she said she loved me, and I said I loved her too, only neither of us said it aloud.

It was my birthday a few months ago. As a gift, Rick (who I didn't even know knew when my birthday was) showed me how to shave. It stung like a bitch. After the shave, I went downstairs and walked right into a surprise party, leaping out of my skin as everybody suddenly rose out from behind the furniture with a small cake and gifts, yelling, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLIVER!" Rick had to pry my knife out of my hand. I also cried, shock more than anything—everybody pretended not to notice and went about cutting the cake and giving me their gifts.

—Tara gave me a skateboard. She painted a rainbow under the deck (most of the red, yellow-green, and purple has rubbed off after how much I use it).

—Daryl gave me a Big Cat candy bar, sort of tossed it across the room with a grunty nod and then left to go hunting.

—Noah built me a bookshelf.

—Denise gave me a tennis ball. She says it's good for physical therapy (Carl uses it more than me, since we both need the PT). It helps.

—Carl gave me a new holster, custom for lefties, with a small pouch to keep my inhalers and Lizzie's watch.

—Michonne got me a new beanie, dark green, (she caught on about the whole Peter Pan thing after overhearing Enid's nickname for me.

—Carol had already baked the cake (which in itself was astounding), so I thought that was her gift, but it wasn't until later in the evening when everybody had gone that she gave me a Cherokee Rose in a cola bottle. She said Daryl found it, said she could give it to me. She told me a story about when the American Soldiers were moving Natives off their land, how the children were dying, starving or just disappearing. After the Elders sent a prayer asking for a sign to lift the mothers' spirits, to give them strength and hope, the next day, the rose started growing right where their tears fell.

I think my sixteenth birthday was my best birthday. And to make it even better, Rick taught me to drive. Carl too, since I'd invited him. We took Aaron and Eric's _astoundingly ugly_ car out of Alexandria and practiced around the burned suburb. I did alright, what Glenn'd taught me hadn't all been forgotten. It's just fiddly doing it with one hand. When Carl took his turn behind the wheel, however, he managed to hit a walker; drove straight through it.

"Hands on the wheel! ON THE WHEEL! BRAKE! Push down the brake!"

"Which one's the brake?!"

Rick shoved his foot into Carl's compartment and the car screeched to a halt. We took a few breathless moments, staring at the decapitated walker head that'd landed on the hood. It snapped at us like it was laughing, and then I started laughing – that kind of laughing that feels more like yacking.

"I think we'll call off the driving lessons," Rick murmured, "until further notice..."

"Yeah," Carl agreed.

I struggled free from my seatbelt because I really was about to yack, and I did, right outside the door into the grass. Rick leant over his seat and rubbed circles into my back until I stopped.

'Further notice' still hasn't come about yet.

In more news, the wall expansions are going well. Now we have a real church, a water tower, and a few more houses. Also, the lake water is clean and fresh now after the propane and walker bodies were either flushed out or removed. Alexandria's food supply is running low though. Our crops were growing through Summer, but last month some kind of locust came through. Ate everything. They were loud and got into our hair and clothes. I once found a dead one in an empty rifle bolt. We didn't have anything to repel them. All the crops were dead in days. We'd started to get things back up and running better than before, too, so unless we find food soon it's going to take us everything to pull through winter. "Sorghum," Eugene insists, _constantly_. "Sorghum is _the_ envy of all corns."

Rick and Daryl are going out today to find more food.

Enid is petting Bean's head. We're sitting inside the gazebo instead of on it—kinder to me but not much fun. I sit on the ground in front of Enid, my back to the edge and Bean tucked under my arm.

Enid's writing in her notebook, her legs and feet up on the free seat. I'm thinking about pasta. Apparently pasta's something I think about a lot. Pasta is still my thing. My _only_ thing. Noah says my Italian ancestors would be proud.

"I don't wanna go out there," Enid tells me again. "There's nothing in the forest but ghosts anymore."

Enid hates going out more and more every day, dreads it, almost. It's always Carl that insists we go now. But she still doesn't say anything to him. To me, however? All she does is complain about it. She isn't so much afraid of being in the forest, just uncomfortable in it. She wasn't always though. To her it was a place to run and hide and escape. A place close to home but far enough away from it. Good but bad. Comforting but damaging.

I guess Enid's just grown out of it.

"He doesn't even ask if I want to."

"Then tell him," I say. "I'm sick of you always whining about it like a freaking baby."

"Asshole."

"Yeah," I murmur, "don't act like it's a surprise."

"It's not," she sighs. "Just, some days I think you'll quit it already."

I shake my head and wring Nell's book in my hand. I need to stop doing that. It's battered and falling apart. I should put it in a drawer and leave it alone, like Mika's bracelet and Lizzie's knife and watch. Mika's bracelet snapped recently. I wear it wrapped around another bracelet now, and Lizzie's knife has been repaired so many times now that the handle is more duck-tape than thermoplastic.

"She'd be so mad at you," Enid tells me, "reading all her stuff without asking."

I thumb at its grey spine, my brow knitted together, glaring at the shaded grass and dust in front of the gazebo. I focus on the late water. The reeds. They blur green and silver. Like her eyes. I swallow the lump in my throat.

"Sorry," Enid says. She shrugs—I hear it. "Actually, I think she'd find it flattering."

I frown. It's odd, Enid being so sweet. Today. _This_ day. This day that Carl will come along and find us soon to go with him into the forest. Usually she'll let her bitterness take over, and I'll let that happen. I'll take comfort in her bitterness, hide in it, because to be absolutely truthful I like her bitterness—well, no, I don't, but at least I'm used to it. I'll use it as an excuse to shrink away into myself, into my staleness. She will, too. Our bitter staleness is why we get along so well, so Enid will call me an asshole and we'll go back to reading, and her sweetness will only come out when it's necessary.

 ** _Maybe today it is.  
Maybe you just haven't noticed yet..._**

"Plus," Enid goes on with the sweet, "she wrote good. It'd be a shame for—"

"Enid," I mumble, because I don't want to talk today. I want to fester in my bitter staleness like every other day, like routine. "Keep writing," I say, "please?"

She pulls her lips to one side.

"I like the sound," I say. "Pen on paper. It's nice."

So, without any more words, Enid goes back to her brain nest and I go back to listening to that happen. It's a while later that I hear someone coming towards us. My heart stutters and I look up.

"Hey..." It's Maggie.

I squint, disappointed. I hate that, how I'm still so desperate for a glimpse of him.

"Mornin', you two."

She's holding a scroll of paper and a clipboard. Her hair's down over her shoulders and her denim flannel is buttoned up half way. There is no new-born infant curled up in her arms. Miscarriage. She never told anybody but we all figured it out. We noticed how wet her and Glenn's eyes would get, how long their hugs were and the small, hopeful-hopeless whispers they'd exchange. The wet in their eyes only just started to go away a few months ago, because Maggie is pregnant again.

She and Judith are like celebrities around here.

Enid closes her notebook, but doesn't say anything. Maggie knows me enough to understand that my silence is as much a greeting as an aloud 'Hello', but Enid's different. Her silence means she's uncomfortable.

"Where have you been, Enid?"

"What?"

"I never see you." Maggie smiles. "Everybody's been working for months to keep this place up and running and you just disappear sometimes..." Maggie lives right next door to me—sees me a lot and is under the impression that she knows what I get up to, but she doesn't, not totally. "Do you sit in your room all day?"

"No," Enid answers.

Maggie's eyes move to me. She looks at me the same way Deanna would, like she's reading me, poker-face charging at full speed. I often wonder if that's just how you have to look at people when you're their representative. Either way, my expression must read guilty because she starts looking a bit annoyed.

"Then where do you go?"

"Nowhere..." This is a clever truth. _Nowhere_ is what we've named the place in the forest with the hollow tree trunk and the locker.

Maggie sighs. "Enid... I'm—"

"You're around," Enid says, "I know."

Maggie nods and leaves. Enid stares after her. Sometimes I think she really _does_ want to talk to someone other than me. I just think it's hard for her.

I flick her kneecap to get her attention. Enid must have shaved her legs recently. I didn't think she shaved, and I've seen her naked (accidentally—I didn't know she was in the bathroom) so that's how I know she doesn't usually shave. I wonder why she did, but I don't ask. I mean, _I_ shave. My face, granted, but still.

"She's always doing that," Enid complains. "Trying to relate to me. Telling me how grateful she is I helped Glenn when the herd came—" Some crazy terrible incident involving Nicholas' suicide and Glenn spending a night hiding under garbage disposal. "—that I helped her up in the guard post."

I nod, thinking I'm a selfish monster that I'm glad the things worked out the way they did. I'm _glad_ Nicholas killed himself. It meant he didn't have to come back and find out about his son. It meant that Mikey didn't have to find out about him. Not on this earth, at least.

Still, I get back on topic. "Well, you showed up out of nowhere for Glenn—" Divine holy spirit, see? "—Gave him water." I think she also gave him something else. I don't know what it was, but I know it wasn't something I can describe, something that meant a lot between them, and them only. Enid's like that. She has special connections with certain people. You know your own story with her, like Nell did, and Ron, and Mikey, and now Glenn and Carl and me, but the moment you try to explain it in words you just... can't.

"She keeps telling me that maybe there are better places for me to go than just _Nowhere,_ " Enid says, bitter mode out in full force. "Like she knows anything."

I'm still frowning at her.

"What?"

"You kinda sound like a bitch," I tell her, "a little."

She sighs, playing with her necklace; it has a small part of a deer antler dangling from it. I get this feeling like I want to put my arm in my hoodie pocket, but Denise tells me I should try not to hide it too much anymore, so I resist. I've healed but I still have it wrapped, like Carl had his socket wrapped.

"Can you cut my hair?"

I look at her, a bit startled.

"It's too long," she adds. It is. So long she sits on it sometimes. So long all of Alexandria and Virginia and America has to worry about not getting tangled up in it. "I could get grabbed, or worse." I flinch. "So, can you?"

"Why me?"

"How bad can you be at it?"

"I have one hand."

"You're okay at shaving."

"No..." I stretch my neck up to show the small array of scabs on the side of my jaw. "I'm not."

She sighs. "Just, please?"

"Why not Carol?"

"Because," Enid says, like she might be embarrassed. "Just... you, okay?"

"Wait... have I become your favourite?" She scowls. "I _have,_ " I say, awed. "Oh my God, I— _ouch!_ "

She kicked me right in the back of my head. I spend a few moments rubbing the sting away, growling Italian curses.

"You should talk to her," I say finally, "Maggie, I mean. She can help better than I can. You don't like it out there. Maybe spending time with her is a better place to go than just _Nowhere_."

Enid doesn't seem to like this advice.

"He'll be here soon," she says.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

 _I looked out this morning and the sun was gone  
_ _Turned on some music to start my day  
_ _I lost myself in a familiar song  
_ _I closed my eyes and I slipped away_

 _It's more than a feeling, more than a feeling  
When I hear that old song they used to play  
More than a feeling  
I begin dreaming. More than a feeling_

 _'Till I see Marianne walk away  
I see my Oliver walk aw—_

crap.

He's talking, distracting the song in my head.

"What?" I ask.

Oliver doesn't repeat himself. We keep climbing the wall. Me first, then Oliver, then Enid. It's as I'm going down the outer side, Oliver at the top manoeuvring himself over and Enid opposite me climbing up, that I hear her ask, "What is that you're humming?" I realise this must've been Oliver's question from before.

"Oh." I was humming? "Jus' one o' the songs on the CD Oliver let me borrow." I land and step back. Oliver's coming down, careful not to go to fast. At the very top, Enid sits on the brown towel and waits for him to get down. He does. I tell him, "Thanks, by the way. I've been listening to it all morning."

Oliver smiles. I look at Enid. She's grinning. When she lands, she nudges Oliver's elbow. " _More_ mix-tapes?"

I watch his cheeks darken. It's strange. When Oliver blushes, his cheeks go more blotchy than blushy, like somebody's dabbed an uneven paintbrush on his cheeks and neck and collarbones instead of just brought all his blood vessels to the surface of his skin. It bothers me that I remember this about blood vessels but not the strange way somebody blushes.

"They aren't mix-tapes," I explain, "just CDs."

Oliver grips the strap of his backpack and leads the way into the tree-line. Enid finds what I'd said funny. I must've missed a joke. I look at Oliver to check; usually, if it's a good joke he'll laugh too, so I'll laugh. Trusting Oliver's laugh is easier than trusting Enid's. But Oliver isn't laughing. He's still blushing. I wonder if I'm blushing too or if it's just that the sun is hot, only it's not very sunny today, plus, we're in tree cover now.

It bothers me that neither of them are explaining the joke I missed. It bothers me how time exists but also doesn't, and how everything is made of millions and millions of tiny atoms bunched together, and how big the universe is, and how unimportant I am.

I think I know what the joke is, so I say, "Are CDs actually mix-tapes? Are they just the same thing? Or, wait, no... erm... How do you tell the difference?"

Enid doesn't find this funny.

"It's just a CD," Enid explains, like she feels sorry for me. "They're the ones that look like DVD's, but you can't see anything on the screen when you put them in the player."

"Right," I say under my breath. I knew that. Just like I know how to dress myself and tie my shoes and function like a normal human being, just... little things like CDs slip away sometimes.

"Was it on the seventies, sixties or the fifties CD?" Oliver mumbles. He only talks in mumbles, especially out here—too busy looking at tree and dirt and squirrels. Sometimes I think he's rude, paying more attention to the world than the people around him. Sometimes it makes me want to just sit and watch him.

"Seventies," I answer. "Dad took the other CD with him today. I could hear Ronnie Dee all the way from the house."

Oliver smirks. I do, too.

"Bet Daryl's loving that," Enid says, running her fingers through the moss on a tree.

"Least it draws any walkers away," I shrug.

We keep walking. I keep my ears and eye open, taking in the smell of the woods and the soft coolness of the day, thinking of the trees and the walkers. Out of everything, I think the trees and the walkers are the things I'm most sure about. Even Dad confuses me sometimes. I think of him hugging me and squeezing my shoulder, then I think of him murdering Shane. I think of him screaming at the air after Mom died, and tearing a man's throat out with his teeth. The trees and the walkers are the only things that have stayed the same to me.

"Look..." Enid says at some point, diverting course. Oliver follows. He picks up a deflated, blue star-balloon, carefully pulling away the folded paper beside it. It's a letter.

"What's it say?" I ask.

Enid unfolds it. Oliver reads it over her shoulder but gives up and rubs at his eyes—another headache, guess.

"It got wet," she says. "It's all gone."

I walk away. "C'mon."

"Doesn't look that old," she follows me, still holding onto the letter. "I mean, we can't read what they wrote but, just by doing this they're saying something."

"What?" I ask.

"We're not alone," she answers.

"We knew that," I say. "We saw it. People died."

As I walk away, she and Oliver glance at each other. I wonder if maybe they're making fun of me, if maybe I'm not taking this as lightly as I should, if maybe after these few months they still don't want me out here with them.

"Why are we coming out here?" she asks.

"'Cause we're kids," I say. "That's what they do."

They start to follow me.

Enid sighs and catches up. "We're not kids."

* * *

 **Notes**

Songs were _Falling_ by Florence and the Machine and _More Than a Feelin'_ by Boston. And the movie Oliver quoted was _One Hour Photo_ (I saw a gif on Tumblr.) I adapted the memory loss from the comics. The driving scene, too.

Should be around fall 2012 now. Non-cannon things are Maggie's miscarriage and getting pregnant again, and the seven-month time gap. Oliver's 16. Carl's 15. This is still a Carl x OMC story. It may be a slow burn. I just have a lot of clouds in my brain and for some reason this seems like a good idea. _Also, bite me, De Luca, you can fucking age-UP for once._

Again, thanks, Fede, for the art  
– find him on Tumblr, _**train-wreck101**_

As always,  
Happy reading.


	12. The Next World, Part 2: What Kids Do

**BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** Thank you so much.

 **fandomismylife** God I'm sorry. thank you! yeah, I did by accident but it should be fine.

 **fedetornabene** You spork. thank you!

 **Natsumo Fujoshit** I can't tell what emotion you're feeling

 **DarthGranola** SAAAMEEE

 **I'mNotThatPerfect** I have NO idea. But it blew me away. I think Oliver handled this pretty well.

 **Rolochan** I love your reviews, holy fudge. I have been debating over what to do with Enid and Oliver for weeks. Daryl and Oliver father son moments maybe to come. I'll see what I can do for Bean.

 **Caroline** Nooooo... Don't hate me!

 **AGGXX5** Thank you.

 **The Flash Fanatic** Augh, I don't know why I pouted when I read that "good heart" bit about Carl. But God, he really does, doesn't he? Just his character in general. Just, a very good heart. I wonder if they'll go more comic rout with him one day? _Edit: NO THEY DO NOT_

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

We make it to Nowhere a few minutes later, sitting along the fallen trunk in order of Carl, Enid and me, Carl' hat set aside on a log and my backpack behind me.

We share a packet of dried fruit. Enid's still trying to decipher that letter. Carl's reading Invincible again. I was reading, too, but I got a headache and stopped. Denise thinks my headaches are a long-lasting side effect from the concussion at Jessie's, only the headaches didn't start until a few months _after_ that.

Regardless, I get to playing catch with myself instead, using my PT ball. Carl brought it. This morning I could hear him throwing it against the wall next door. Sometimes I think he practices just to annoy me rather than for physical therapy. "Denise says it's for PT," he'll insist, throwing it by my head. I'll dodge and glare at him and say, "Stop it," and he will, for a bit, then throw it again when I'm not expecting it. One time it hit me in the face and gave me a nosebleed.

 ** _Maybe it was him who started the headaches..._**

"Who's flannel is this?" Enid asks. Carl looks at her. I don't. I smirk at my tennis ball and throw it up in the air.

"What's wrong with it?" Carl asks.

She reaches into the breast pocket and pulls out a rotting rat tail. She shrieks and throws it into the forest. They both look at me. I don't look back. Instead I try not to laugh.

"Oliver, what the hell?! You put it in there on purpose?!" She thumps me in the side. "You said I could have the shirt!"

Actually, no, I didn't. I said she could _borrow_ it, almost six weeks ago. When it hit week five I got the bright idea to cut off the tail from a Rat Bean had killed. It's been in the pocket ever since. Enid complained about the smell yesterday so I knew it wouldn't be long.

"What was it in there for?" Carl asks.

"God," Enid says over him, "you're such a hypocrite, Oliver. You wear my cardigans all the time."

I shrug. Carl shakes his head at his comic, grinding his teeth, and Enid and I realise we were ignoring him. In truth, I haven't even said anything. But sometimes I don't need to with Enid. I think that bothers Carl, that he can still feel like a third wheel even though I hardly say a word.

I'm going to apologise, hand him some dried fruit, but there's a rustle nearby and we stop what we're doing.

"Come on," Enid whispers.

Routine, when walkers come, is to hide in the hollow tree and wait for them to leave. I put the PT ball on the ground and follow her towards the trunk; if one of us crouches, all three of us fit. One problem. Carl doesn't come with us. He crouches by the log, gun in hand, and watches it.

 _Shit. He keeps doing this._

It's a nasty habit to get a closer look on the walkers. Enid and I try to discourage him, but it's gotten to the point that it's dangerous. I see two of them, I think, but it's hard to tell from this far.

I draw my Glock, whisper, "Dude..."

"It's just Michonne and Spencer," Carl says, sighing. I holster my gun. Enid steps out of the tree.

"What were they doing?" she asks.

"I don't know."

He sits back and takes his comic. Enid stands beside me, our shoulders brushing. I look at her. I know what she's thinking. I touch her hand and tug her on. She sighs, but steps forward.

"I don't wanna come out here anymore."

Carl turns and stands up. Enid gets so nervous she touches my hand.

"Okay," he says. He puts away our comics and takes his hat. He looks at our hands, then walks away.

* * *

The earth is soft and the trees have lost all their green, turning orange and red and yellow. I look up through the trees, the sun is coming in and out of the clouds; they look like cigarette smoke.

It will rain soon.

We come across a walker not far from the wall. It's short, with mouldy, shoulder-length hair, and is dawdling the other way. If we leave it alone, it won't notice us. Of course, Carl draws his gun and goes after it.

"Carl..."

"Michonne's out here," he grumbles at Enid. "I'm not leaving it." He whistles. The walker turns, steps through the trees. I see the blue watch, the torn, bloody blouse, the bandage tied around her leg, and the Van Goughly painted face.

Deanna.

Now her paint has moulded.

"No..." Enid's breath hitches. My feet root to the earth.

"Hey," Carl says. "C'mon."

"Carl... Th...that's Deanna. She..."

"I know, Enid." His voice is soft. I can hardly hear him. "She had a lot of smiles."

He remembers.

"Come on," Carl encourages Deanna.

"What are you doing?" Enid hisses.

"Just go," he tells her.

She takes out her mother's knife. "We should kill it."

"Go home," Carl orders.

"No!"

" _Enid!_ "

"This is bullshit." She steps around him. " _It_ should be dead." He grabs her. "Let go!" He doesn't, instead he's pulling, _dragging_ her back. She stumbles. I'm there then, shoving him off her.

"Stop, man!"

He grabs me instead.

"Go," he yells, pushing me so hard I fall. "Go!"

" _Dude!_ "

"Just _leave!_ "

"The hell are you doing? C'mon, stop... _stop!_ "

He scowls at me. He doesn't do this. He doesn't mess with walkers and grab people. He doesn't—

"Ahh!" Enid, distracted by us, is grabbed from behind. Carl is fast. He shoves Deanna away and Enid stumbles to the side. I aim at Deanna's face, but Carl's elbow comes back and he knocks the gun out of my hand. Then the rest of him is colliding with me, so hard the air is knocked out of my chest.

I yelp and hit the ground.

"You're not killing it!" Carl yells, faltering to his feet breathlessly. I glare up at him. He just turns to Deanna holds her down with a food against her chest.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Enid asks. She helps me up. I retrieve my gun and clutch my stomach, snatching my backpack for my inhaler.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Wouldn't understand?" I hiss back. "What, Carl? I know everything about you!"

Deanna growls under him.

"You don't wanna be out here, you said it," he tells us, "so go home."

Enid turns on her heel and leaves.

"Carl... come on, man," I try, "we can go back tog—"

"Just _go,_ Oliver."

"But—"

" _Go!_ You don't want to be here!"

I turn and walk away.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

After returning from the forest, I saw Enid and Oliver on my way back home. They were at the lake with Bean. Enid was sitting and Oliver was laid on the grass. She was playing with his hair.

They haven't talked to me.

I've been home with Judith ever since. It's dark now. We're outside on the porch, Judith on my hip, looking up at the stars. Nobody's home. The others started moving out around the community at the start of summer. Daryl took a place opposite the first house. Oliver, Carol, Sasha and Noah still live next door, but Rosita and Abraham took a brownstone apartment. Eugene, another. Tara moved in with Denise at the clinic. Glenn and Maggie took the Anderson's old place. Gabriel has a whole church now. Michonne was thinking about moving out, but she stayed to look after me—and Dad, I think.

Sometimes, at night, I'll wake up and wonder around the house. It used to be worse. On the first night home I left the house. Dad found me wandering around outside the gates, but he told me I can't do that on my own, so I stopped. Now I'll just sit in the living room writing crossword puzzles. They were mine, before, but now I fill them with names and places and certain words I couldn't quite tell were made up or not. If they fitted into the lines then I'd be able to relax for a second, but if they didn't I would get mad, tear up the paper. Sometimes I'd rip off my bandage and rub my eye, angry at the whole world for everything I was missing, until Michonne or Dad or both would hear me and stop me and take me back to my room.

I'm better now. Now, if I'm feeling bad, I draw into my sketchpads. I'm good, too. I've started selling them, or rather trading them, mostly just with the other kids around: a sketched unicorn for a hoodie, or a cartoon portrait for a Granola bar.

I point to the sky. The clouds have cleared tonight, and the universe is bright with stars and galaxies. "See that bright one?" I ask. Judith follows my finger. "Yeah. That's the North Star. It's at the end of The Little Dipper..."

She babbles through her pacifier.

"Yeah..." I rock us slowly and gently in the chair. "If you get lost at night just find that star."

Michonne arrives. She stands in front of us. "Hey."

"Hey," I say back.

"Have a good day?"

I sigh. "Guess so." Judith Michonne's name through her pacifier. Michonne is watching me. I push myself out of the seat. "I'm gonna take her in."

"Carl," she says. She puts her sword against the banister. Her eyebrows are furrowed and I realise I'm about to be chastised...

"Oliver told you."

"No," she says. "He didn't have to. I saw. You brought Deanna to us." I stand in front of her by the banister, Judith on my hip. I won't deny it. "You should have left her, or killed her."

"No, that's stupid," I whisper.

"What's _stupid_ is you being out there when you don't have to."

"You'd do the same thing," I answer. "You and Spencer didn't have to go out there, but you did."

"That's different."

"It's _not_ ," I insist. "I wasn't gonna leave her out there like that. _You_ wouldn't—You _wouldn't._ I know it. And I couldn't kill her—"

"Why not?"

" _Because!_ " I hate this about me now. I have so many words in my head, so many ways to explain, but it all gets trapped inside my chest.

"You _could_ have killed her," she insists.

"No, I _couldn't._ I wouldn't."

"Were you playing some sort of game out there? Did you think that—"

" _No!_ "

"Then why?"

I find one sentence in my brain, a good one, and it rushes out of me all at once: "Because it should be someone who loves her. Someone who's family. And I... I'd do it for you." Michonne's face goes soft, like wet watercolour. I'm not sure if I should feel embarrassed, so I hold my ground and steel my face. "I would."

She's soft not just in her face now but all over. "Come here." I do, tipping forward into her. She wraps her arms around us. When she pulls away, she tells me, "I'll put Judith to bed for you."

"Okay."

* * *

I change my bandage just as Dad comes home. He looks tired and smells of sweat. He tells me to get ready for bed. I do. I drift to sleep to the smell of gunpowder, the taste of pudding and grapes. I dream of Mom's Sunday pancakes and the tire swing in our backyard, of Shane visiting after work, joking around with Dad. I dream of a rainbow cat, and being grossed out by soy milk, and making up words in a scrabble game. And then I dream of brown eyes and brown skin, of lips, of physic-breaking, brunette hair—my hands in it, tangled and tugging.

I wake up with a jolt. I'd fallen asleep drawing, but not in my usual sketchpad. In my other one. The one I don't show people. It's filled with rotting things and bleeding things, drawings of whole dead herds with living hidden inside like a Where's Waldo book. I draw my scarring, back when it was still weepy and scabby, or how it is now, all lumps and bumps and thick, tight scars. I don't show this to people because they wouldn't like it. And they _definitely_ wouldn't like the newer drawings. I draw Oliver. _All the time._ Pages and pages of him, and they're _good,_ too, better than my other stuff. I draw him biting his lip and thinking. I draw his face, scrunched when he laughs, and the birthmark behind his ear. I draw him laying down, looking sad and annoyed just because that's his face sometimes.

I draw something now, thinking of those pictures in an art text book I have of Édouard Manet's work, like _Olympia,_ and Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec's, _The Kiss_ and _Crouching Woman with Red Hair_. Those guys were so explicit back in their time that their art was rejected. _Rejected._ Still, I use them as inspiration, drawing an in-depth analysis sketch of Oliver... below his belt.

When it looks right, I stare at him— _it._ Daring myself, I run my thumb along the page, like maybe it won't be paper I feel but _him_. My hands are shaking. I'm going crazy, I swear. Maddened, I put the sketchpad on my bedside, propped open between a glass of water and a book, and lay down to look at it. My pillow feels hot and flat. I wait one minute, two... _staring,_ thinking maybe — _just maybe—_ this time I'll be able to hold out, to not. _To just look. _But then, like a landslide, my hand crashes down from its mountain and slips inside my underwear, like always.

In these secret, private moments, to feel better, I tell myself that the universe has to sneeze and that I'm the only one with the feather— _and the tissue paper._

Except it doesn't get that far. Just when I think it's all over going to be over, next door I hear my dad speaking and I stop quickly, paranoid he's heard me. Michonne with him, which is strange because it's late. I frown at the ceiling and wait for them to be quiet, to say goodnight, for Michonne to go back to her room and Dad to go to sleep, but then I hear the headboard begin to hit the wall. Somebody moans.

 _Oh God._

As well as being mildly disgusted, I take this as my chance, so I'm out of bed, creeping from my room, down the staircase, and out the living room window.

Once on the roof next door, I take a minute or two deciding to step towards the window. It's firm shut, which I wasn't expecting. He's sleeping. Bean is at the foot of his bed, who notices me somehow, and gets up. He sits before the window and watches me. Noah's in there, despite having his own room across the hallway. They were probably up talking. Noah once told me, 'Oliver gets real sad sometimes' so I guess it helps having him around.

I should just go. And I'm going to, but Bean walks across the room to Oliver's bed and licks his palm a few times. I'm astounded. Oliver wakes up. He sits up and says something to Bean, and then he notices me.

I wave.

It's hard to see him in the dark, so I press my nose against the glass and whisper, "Hey." Oliver climbs out of bed. He steps into the moonlight, tired and goofy in a raglan shirt, boxers, and a pair of tattered zebra print socks.

 _Right,_ I think, _he sleeps with his socks on..._

"Carl?" I read his lips.

"Oliver."

He says something.

"What? I can't hear you."

He's pointing at his ears.

"Can you just open the window?"

He says something about the window too. I realise this conversation is going in circles. He notices this too, then points to the next window along—Noah's empty bedroom. I go ahead and shuffle over to wait for him. When he arrives, he opens the window.

"Sorry. I couldn't open my window, it would wake Noah."

"Think it'll ever be fixed?"

"Ask yourself," he says, "you're the one who broke it."

For some reason, I recollect hiding in a bathroom half naked with a photograph in my hand and inappropriately tight underwear. I feel the burn in my cheeks. Oliver tries not to laugh. I know I should laugh too, but I don't.

We're quiet a minute.

"Do you—"

"Are we still friends?" I interrupt.

Oliver blinks, frowns.

"Are we," I ask, "friends—still?"

"Err... yes?"

I sigh. "Thanks."

Oliver's eyebrow cocks.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing," he says, blushing blotchy-like again. "You're just..." He laughs. "You came here in the middle of the night, to ask me... if we're still friends?"

I shrug. "Guess."

He's biting his top lip. I'm pretending not to notice.

"Why?" he asks.

"Had to make sure, after today. I thought you and Enid hated me."

"I don't," he says. "Enid might, for a while. But if you make her hot coco she'll forgive you soon enough. Usually works for me." It's odd, when he's here in the second house he talks more, like it's his territory, like he's some dog bigger than me.

I nod smaller-dog-like.

"The desk," Oliver whispers. "Careful when you climb over it. You want to come in, right?"

" Yeah."

He reaches for me. I climb inside, careful of Noah's construction plans—"He'll kill me if it's messed up." "Really?" "Well, not. Probably just put salt in my coffee again." "Again?!" He shuts the window after me. We stand here. Oliver grabs the spinney chair, spins on it, one leg on the seat. He stops and looks at me, looks and looks and I want to ask him why he's looking at me like that. Instead I tug my bandage, making sure it's covering over my eye.

"Couldn't sleep," I say.

"Want some coffee, hot coco?"

"I'm okay."

He spins in the chair all the way around. Even at sixteen years old, Oliver has the selective maturity of a child. He says, "We can go watch a movie downstairs, if we put the volume down. Or we can read, out on the roof."

"I'm okay," I repeat. "Just... wanna sleep."

"Noah's in my room, so you can sleep here." I look at Noah's bed. Oliver steps off the chair, moving to the door. "Night, Carl." He goes.

I stand here feeling lost. I wait maybe five or ten minutes before I tip-toe down the landing into his bedroom. Noah is snoring. Oliver must be asleep too because he only turns and looks at me when I touch his shoulder. I whisper, "Can I sleep in with you?"

Oliver doesn't hear me because I realise he's wearing headphones, hooked up to the stereo by his bed. He pulls them off quickly. "What?"

"Sorry."

"You okay?"

I'm nodding, asking again, "Can I sleep here, with you?"

He blinks, nods. I slump along the bed to his left. He's tapping against his chest with his fingers, his amp against his side, tucked away. My hands are on my stomach, one leg bent. The bed is wide enough for us to lie comfortably but our shoulders are piled a bit.

"Can I listen to my music?"

I look at him and nod politely.

"Want to listen, too?"

Again, I nod. He puts the headphones between us so that we can hear the music quietly.

 _'We hide our emotions  
Under the surface and try to pretend  
But it feels like there's oceans  
Between you and me_

 _I want you  
I want you  
And always will_

 _It feels like there's oceans  
Between you and me...'_

Oliver clears his throat. "Kinda depressing—sorry."

"No... I like it."

The quiet is odd.

"So..." he says, but doesn't finish.

"So..." I trail too. I make sure my bandage is covering my eye again. It's part of some unspoken agreement between us: Don't look at the missing parts. Another unspoken agreement: Don't look in each other's eyes too much.

"Why does your breath smell like baking soda?" Oliver asks.

I don't risk turning my head, unspoken agreements and all. "We ran out of toothpaste. Michonne made some. It's a little strong."

"We ran out, too, last week. Carol's been making us use soap."

"Soap?"

" _Soap,_ man. It tastes the worst, but it's over quickly. And, hey – at least my breath smells of Pink Clay Peppermint."

I laugh under my breath. Another song is playing, one about fire and wolves and the forest. "Better than salt," I say.

Oliver grins.

"Next it'll be Blue Grass Cottontail," I go on.

"Ooh... or, Virginian Walker Rot."

I laugh. "What about... Carol's _Killer_ Casserole?"

He's giggling so hard he's almost crying. " _Gesù Cristo._ Think I'll just stick to Pink Clay, thanks."

I can feel my face going hot, thinking about _Gesù Cristo..._ "Smells nice," I mumble, awkward, change subject: "Dad and Daryl found some guy today."

"What's he like?"

"He robbed them. But, they caught him. He's knocked out so they left him in confinement 'til mornin'."

"Did they bring anything back?"

"Don't know. Dad was pretty tired, I didn't ask."

Oliver is quiet a second. "Won't you get caught when your dad and Michonne notice you're gone?"

"They won't notice, trust me."

"Why?"

I hesitate. "They're, uh... well..."

" _No way._ "

I nod. "Loudly."

Oliver scoffs. "Your dad's room's right next to you, huh?"

I nod miserably.

"What a boner-kill."

"You have _no_ idea."

We crack up. Oliver looks at me. I look at the ceiling, listening to songs.

"You okay with it?"

This time, _I_ look at _him_ and _his_ eyes are on the ceiling. "With the boner-kill or them screwing?"

Oliver elbows my chest, snickering. " _Them,_ asshole."

"Sure." I shrug. "I'd like them to be quieter, but sure." We're sent into another fit of giggles, which breaks up into a elbowing match, which turns into tickling, which I am winning.

"Listen, guys." We both startle at Noah's voice from across the room. "If you're gonna do this again could you just be quiet? And, you know, PG-thirteen."

" _Dude_ ," Oliver growls.

I'm wondering if I know what Noah means by _again._ He groans, then I think he's fallen asleep because he's snoring. Still, Oliver and I wait a while to relax our shoulders and breathe again, and even then, we don't speak for a long time.

Oliver sighs and turns back to the ceiling. Noah snores loudly.

"Oh, here," Oliver says suddenly, "I made something for you. Well, for Judith."

"What is it?"

He leans over the bed. "Don't look, just hold out your hands."

"What is it?"

"Don't look, man."

"What if it's gross?"

"What the hell do you think I'm gonna give you? Just shut your eyes, dork. And hold out your hands." I do, palms up. Something soft and fluffy is placed there. "You can look now."

I do.

"Well... what do you think?"

"Erm... It's, uh... what is it?"

He looks offended. "It's meant to be a cat. Made it from old clothes people didn't want anymore. Carol taught me... tried, at least. I... I know it's not very good and it looks more like a dead frog, but—look the stitching's pretty solid, she won't be able to tear it apart, and... I mean it's, you know, just something to keep her company."

"I..." I feel my face go hot. "I love it."

Oliver looks at me like he isn't sure he believes me.

"Really. Thanks."

"Yeah," he says, "sure."

"Has it got a name?"

"Not that I know of," Oliver says, laughing a little.

"What about Patrick?"

Oliver makes a noise. "I don't think my brother would like a plush-cat named after him."

I cringe because this should have been obvious.

"What about... Patty?" I propose.

Oliver smirks. "Patty. What do you think?" The cat remains inanimate. "I think he likes it," Oliver says anyway. I grin and hold the cat up by its ears. One is dark-brown, the other lighter. Most of the rest of its body is a mismatch of browns too, from old jeans to T-shirts, except it's belly, which is from Michonne's old white blouse.

"You even gave it whiskers and a tail," I say. "And buttons for eyes." One is blue and the other's yellow.

"I couldn't find any that matched."

I'm grinning, handing Patty over. "Judith'll love it." He puts the cat on the bedside table. We lay in quiet for a while.

"Why'd you do it?"

I'd been daydreaming about what's better to draw on, smooth paper or card—smooth is better for granite and the vellum paper is better for chalk. "What?"

"Today," Oliver whispers to Patty. "You got angry."

"You get angry, too—You did, once."

"That was different. That was months ago, when..."

"I know," I say.

Oliver sinks through the bed into a surly black hole of worms. I know why.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Yeah, well, let's just not talk about it, alright?"

"Alright." I inhale. "I am sorry, though, about today. I had to do it."

"Why?"

Like before, the words get stuck in my head.

"You led her to Spencer, didn't you?" he says. I just nod, figuring he doesn't need to ask much more than that, figuring that's enough. It isn't. "How long have you been looking for her? Deanna?"

I frown.

"You always wanted to come with us," Oliver elaborates, "and when you finally did—I dunno. Enid and I try to ignore it. We think... We thought you just didn't know any better. But that's not true. You're more comfortable out there than you are anywhere sometimes. It just... It seems like you've been looking for something... _someone_."

"Not Deanna."

"Then, who?"

I wait a second with my breath and sentence all bundled up in my mouth before I gather the courage to answer him. "For you."

"What?"

"I'm looking for Nell," I correct myself. "I know she died on the quarry run. I just... I figured she would've turned and followed the herd to Alexandria. But it's been months. I dunno, after finding Deanna today I... I want to find her even more. For you, and Enid."

Bean pads across the room. He's tired, so slumps across the rug next to my bed. He's growing out of his puppy-ness now. His fur's longer and courser, and he's bulked out. I'd like to say the same about me, and I guess I can, to some extent. Oliver's still taller than me right now though. He has more facial hair too.

"Thank you, Carl."

I look at him. My chest blows up and I float out the window, only I stay here on the bed, held down at the feet by the sheet.

"I remember what you told me about your parents," I say. "And I've been thinking for a while now... I even talked to Dad about it.

I want us to go home.

 _Your_ home.

And, I want to help you put your mom and dad down."

Oliver is looking at me, looking at me hard enough that I have no choice but to look at him too, unspoken agreements shattering. I hear them; the soft piercing _cshhhh!_ scattering across the air.

"Oliver?"

He swallows.

"Why do you look at me like that?"

He drops our eye-contact. "Sorry."

I shrug. "Are you afraid?"

"Not of you." He looks at me twice. "Are you afraid of me?"

I shake my head. "No." I'm still blown up like a hot air balloon, so I get brave enough to say, "I have questions, but I don't ask them because I don't know what you'll say."

"You can ask them," Oliver says, after some time.

"Okay," I say.

"Okay."

"Well, one question. We've had sex."

"Err, that's not a question."

I punch him.

Oliver punches me back.

I glare at him.

He says, "Fine, yes, we have."

"A lot."

Nodding. "A lot."

I look at my hands. I'm going to tell him that I draw him. I'm going to tell him because he's my best friend and I trust him and even if that stuff doesn't happen anymore we should still be able to live without the subject eating away inside my brain.

"I'm sorry," Oliver says before I find the right sentence.

I look at him and frown. "Why?"

"We're kids," he whispers, avoiding my face. "That's not what they do."

I don't say anything. I'm trying not to think about how old we were the first time I crawled down between his legs to blow him, but I'm pretty sure there's a neon fluorescent tattoo on my face that reads 'barely fourteen' with a crappy sketch of the event happening in Grady's sixth floor supply closet right behind me on his headboard.

Like Enid all those hours ago, I just say, "We're not kids." Oliver's lips make a thin, tight line across his face. He shrugs and looks at me. Looks and looks and I point. "I know why you look at me like that," I say. "It's because of my eye, isn't it?"

Oliver stutters.

"It's okay," I whisper. "I know it's ugly."

"No, it's not."

I shrug. "I know you know how I feel, what with your arm." I realise I've hurt his feelings, but I don't know what to say to help.

"It's not gross."

"But it makes you sad."

"Not because of _that,_ Carl."

I stare at him, embarrassed. Oliver is angry, I can tell, but I don't know why. He doesn't bother talking to me. He just turns over and pulls the duvet up over him. I sigh miserably and focus on breathing and not bursting into tears.

"Should I go back next door?"

"If you want."

"I don't," I admit.

"Then lie down and shut up."

I do. And despite his tone I'm smiling a little bit. I curl up behind him, turn over, and say, "Night." And I think he'll say, "I said shut up," all grumpy and stony like he is most of the time, but he just turns over to face me. Oliver looks tired and moody and comfortable. He starts falling asleep, his breath changing in that throaty way.

"I know why you look at me like that," I whisper. I don't know if he hears me, or if he's still asleep, but he shuffles forward and buries his nose into my chest, wrapping an arm around my middle. Finally, when I relax, I even put my arm around him, too, and we fall asleep as we are, thinking that we shoot with bullets worn smooth by worry and are growing up with the smell of death never far from our noses, but throughout it all, we are still, always, Carl Grimes and Oliver De Luca; fascinating and scarred, fixed and unfixable.

* * *

 **Notes**

Patty is **_andytweed_** 's imaginary cat and to see a photo check out her tumblr (there's a fanart somewhere of Patty and my pet whippet hugging each other) Thanks for letting me use Patty in this, Ando.

As always,  
Happy reading.


	13. Knots Untied: Losers

**AGGXX5** I'm still teary eyed. And thanks.

 **DarthGranola** xD thank you.

 **Rolochan** Slightly afraid your sis is going to get mad at you. Yes, okay, I actually love you for these reviews they're so amazing ugh. Yes, I know about the too soon thing, but take into account that they have been friends for months and months now since he woke up, and the first time around they were dating within two, so I say taking seven months to just lie down in bed together is taking it pretty slow. He's not new that's Noah! Or are you talking about someone else? No, technically, Oliver hasn't put any of his own family down. Not Pat, his parents, or Nell :(

 **The Sorrowful Deity** Idek my friend.

 **Blood on my Machete** I'm glad to make your chest hurt. Ugghh. I wish I had a Bean. But I have a whippet, who's just as good.

 **The Flash Fanatic** You know, if this wasn't fanfiction, that would be the worst thing to tell somebody.

 **Katia** Thank you, that would be funny, but I think it's too soon for boner jokes yet xD

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

I wake up with a post-it note stuck to the centre of my face.

 _THANKS FOR PATTY  
P.S. USED SOME BANDAGE FROM THE CABINET  
– C. J. GRIMES_

Which is a pleasant surprise because that hasn't happened in months—the morning post-it notes from him, I mean.

I have this vague memory of Carl's body tumbling and climbing over me early in the morning, telling me to go back to sleep when I said something about Bean. He or Noah must have let him out for me, because the dog isn't in here.

At first, I'm disappointed Carl left, and then I'm very relieved that he did. At the very least, it means I didn't have to choose which one I'd prefer. And then the whole thing is messing with my head harder than I thought because I'm bruising myself. I let it happen for a few minutes. Denise tells me to—"Try distracting yourself thinking about the smell of petrichor and ripe tomatoes, and Carol's casserole." But I'm not doing it, not now, I don't want to. I want to think of Carl's skin in my hand and the sound/feel of his heart jolting under my ear, and as a result, I just have to deal with punishing myself for it.

Finally, I move on and take my inhalers. I ran out of the green one a week ago. Pollen's not so bad this time of year, so it's not urgent. Rick and Daryl said they'd look yesterday, but Carl said it didn't look like they brought anything back. Still, I have a few brown inhalers. One blue. Whatever, I've survived on less.

Skipping a shower, I wonder around the second house, brushing my teeth, mumbling the other's names as I go to check nobody's here. I find another post-it note on the fridge from Carol.

 _Out foraging. Somebody do laundry.  
– C.P._

I like to pretend the 'P' stands for Possum. I read it again. By 'somebody', I know she means 'me'. I hate doing laundry. Not so much the laundry but the laundry room. Me and utility rooms don't get along.

 ** _Too bad, man. With only one hand, laundry's the only domestic chore you're competent at._**

"I'll do it later." Quickly, I dress. Bean must have stolen my boots again because I can't find them, so instead I opt for Noah's shoes. I buckle up my holster and wrap my arm as I leave the house—both tasks are easy now that I, one, leave my holster on my jeans, and two, have gotten the knack of wrapping my arm myself. I probably don't thank Denise and her PT enough.

When I get to the steps of Carl's place, I hear something strange. A voice. Someone I don't know.

"I checked out your arsenal. Haven't seen anything like that in a long time."

My gun is in my hand and I step inside the house, chest full like a threatened puffer fish.

"You're well equipped. But—oh. Hello there."

Despite his calm tone, his hands are up and his eyes on my Glock, which is aiming at the space of skin between his eyebrows.

"I'm Jesus."

I see behind him, Abraham, Maggie, Glenn, Rick, Michonne, Carl, Noah and Daryl, gathered around in the dining room. The stranger is sitting at the table, the morning light from the window resting down around his shoulders.

"It's okay," Michonne tells me.

"Put down your gun," Rick seconds.

I do as I'm told, wound up like a toy.

I look at him, trying to remember _his_ name. I think he said Jesus. I think sometimes I hear things as well as see them. His skin is pale and his hair and beard are long and dirty-brown and now that I'm standing beside Maggie and Glenn, closer to him, I see that his eyes are the kind of blue like those glow-in-the-dark party sticks—Enid found some a while ago and we all spent a whole night running crazy around the lake, lit up like teenage constellations. I probably think about his eyes too much for this being the first time I've ever met him. _Jesus._ Wait, I'm sure he did call himself that, actually. He's probably the guy Carl mentioned last night.

Jesus smiles at Rick. "As I was saying: But, your provisions are low. Very low for the amount of people you have. Very low for the amount of people you have. Fifty-four?"

"More than that," Maggie says.

The fact that he knows so much sets my skin on edge, like I'm a body at wrong frequency. Carl, sitting at the table too, has his handgun under his palm on the surface, a finger tapping the grip. I must still look put off because Abraham nods to me, frowning encouragingly, so I ease up.

"Well, I appreciate the cooking," Jesus says. "My compliments to the chef."

"Yeah, well, she ain't here," Daryl growls.

"Look, we got off to a bad start. But we're on the same side. The living side. You and Rick had every reason to leave me out there. But you didn't."

Daryl glares at him, thwarted.

"I'm from a place a lot like this one," Jesus goes on. "Part of my job is searching out other settlements to trade with. I took your truck because my community needs things, and both of you looked like trouble." This, coming from the man who robbed us, lost our shit, broke out of confinement, and crept around all night, and who still is being given food the morning after.

I cross my arms.

"I was wrong," Jesus says. "You're good people. And this is a good place. I think our communities may in be a position to help each other."

"Do you have food?" Glenn asks.

"And medicine?" Noah adds. He, Tara and Heath are going on a two-week run soon to find some, so the subject is rather important.

"We've got a doctor. We've started to raise livestock. We scavenge. We grow. Everything from tomatoes to sorghum." Well at least Eugene will be satisfied.

Rick's hand gestures. "Tell us why we should believe you."

"I'll show you," Jesus says. "Take a car. I can take you back home in a day." I get déjà vu of Aaron telling us the same thing a year ago. "You can all see who we are and what we have to offer."

"Wait," Maggie interjects. "You're lookin' for more settlements. You mean you were already trading with other groups."

Jesus sits back, looking us all in the eye one at a time. He grins like everything's about to go his way, like he's ready to walk on water, heal the sick, turn bread and wine to flesh and blood...

"Your worlds about to get a whole lot bigger," he says.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

Dad, Michonne, Daryl, Noah, Maggie, Glenn and Abraham are going to drive Jesus to Hilltop, his home. Oliver briefly considered going, but he decided against it:—"Kid with a messed-up arm probably wouldn't be the best first impression anyway," is what I overheard him telling Dad after being asked.

Now though, I'm helping them prepare, carrying a fuel container to the RV just as Dad to speak with me, Judith on his hip. She waves. Dad squints, forehead wrinkling, wearing a white shirt and that jacket with the faux collar. His hair is pulled back this morning, like he's used some kind of mousse in it or something, even his beard is looking neater today.

"You sure about this?" I ask him.

"No," Dad answers. "But if he's telling the truth, this could be the start of everything."

Jesus, Michonne and Oliver walk down the steps. Dad and I watch them. His eyes catch mine and I'm smirking—I sort of have been all morning, ever since I got back, after I found Jesus sitting on the staircase waiting for them (I pulled my gun on him) and Dad and Michonne left the bedroom, half dressed, and froze to the spot when they saw me.

"Look, I was gonna tell you about Michonne but, it just happened. It _just_ happened. Last night." For the second time today, Dad's cheeks turn darker than the container I'm holding. "This is different."

I smile.

"It's cool."

Dad nods. I think he'll walk away, but he doesn't. "Listen, I heard you comin' in this mornin', early."

My turn to turn container-red.

"Where'd you go?"

"Oh, uh... I slept over Oliver's last night."

Dad is nodding like he wants to say something. I wait for it. He's awkward. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I answer, knowing that's not what he means. Still, I'll eat walker guts before I _do_ talk about what he means. He tries, sometimes. He'll tell me: _I don't think you understand how much he's been through._

I'm thumbing at the handle, frowning.

"Dad, can I ask you something?"

He nods.

"When can we go to Lorton?"

"Soon."

"We could go today," I propose.

"We're gonna be a few hours doing this. Won't be back 'til the evening."

"No, I mean, just me and him."

I wait for him to point a finger and say my name in that way it sounds more like coral, but he just smirks. I roll my eyes.

"Dad."

"You can't even drive yet."

"Oliver can," I reply. Dad looks amused. I take this as a good sign, also embarrassing because I've told him this before. "Lorton's only down the road. If we took a car we'd be back in two hours."

He's not buying it. I run my hand through my hair and hold a part of it back. Dad gives me this look then. This look means: _You look so much like your mother._ I put my hand down.

"We're sixteen."

"Think you're a few months short on sixteen, son."

"Oliver isn't," I say.

His eyebrow cocks.

Again, my eyes roll. "Dad."

"Carl."

" _Dad..._ "

He's still smirking.

"We can handle ourselves," I say.

"Yes, you can," he answers.

"So, what's the problem?"

"The problem..." He groans. "Why are you doing this, Carl?"

"What?" I ask, voice suddenly small.

"Why?" he repeats. "Why do you really wanna do this? You answer that, then you can go."

I step back, frustrated.

"He's my best friend."

Dad nods, forehead folding another hundred times over. "Alright. That's fair. But if there's somethin' else in all this making it so important to you, you gotta face it. Don't waste your time calling it something it's not."

I stare at him, feeling see-through like glass.

Dad doesn't ask any more questions. He tells me, "You're gonna feel things. You're young. You're meant to. You're meant to kiss all the girls, or boys, and you're meant to make more friends and spend time being kids, which you have been doin' – I know that.

But there's something else, something I think you know about, something I think you've _let_ happen."

I know what he's talking about and it must be obvious on my face, because Dad doesn't have to tell me. He sighs. He puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Truth is, Carl, you say jump, Oliver's gonna ask how high. So, I need you to..."

"I know," I cut him off, because I do; he tells me all the time. "You need me to be kind to him."

He nods and jerks his chin to the house. "Go get your stuff. Gabriel can take care of Judith while we're gone."

"I'm not coming," I say. "Someone's gotta stay back. Keep this place safe."

Dad watches me. I shrug.

"Kid with a messed-up face probably wouldn't be the best first impression either." Even though I try to laugh at myself, I feel the sting in my chest. Dad, too, by the way his expression falls. I wonder if he looked at Oliver the same way. I wonder if he'll tell me I'm wrong. I wonder why he doesn't. Except I know why. It's because I'm right.

He hands me Judith in exchange for the fuel container.

"Let's chew up some asphalt!" Abraham shouts. Everybody files into the RV. I wave with Judith as they drive away. When they're gone, I head back home. Just before I get to the door, Oliver calls my name from his porch. He's leaning over the banister.

"Hey, man."

"Hey," I say.

"You didn't go with them?"

I shrug.

"Wanna come over?"

I nod and join him. He's reading a book about child abuse, sitting on the couch seat. He pushes Bean off the seat next to him for me. The seat is warm.

Judith fusses.

"Molimer. Molimer, _pees._ "

 _Pees_ means _please_ to Judith, no matter how dramatically we sound out the _L_ for her. I hand her over. Oliver grins and sets her on his lap and asks her how her day's been and she talks about the grass and the wall. She tells him that they are her friends, or, maybe she says that they aren't fun, it's hard to tell.

Judith asks for his beanie and Oliver gives it to her. She has this thing about his beanies. She'll pull them off and insist she wears them all day. This, at least, is better than when she used to pull and pick at his bandage.

She climbs off his lap, bored of their conversation. The green beanie hangs over her eyes as she sits with Bean on the decking floor. He ignores her, which he learned to do ever since she started walking. She calls him, "Emi-Bean," because this is what she calls him; Oliver thinks it's because whenever she hears people talk to him there's usually a command like, sit or out or here or down in front of his name, so she's just filled in the merge of sounds with Emi. It's sweet. And Bean is sweet, to her. He'll sit by her side like a body-guard. He'll let her climb up onto his back like a horse.

Oliver's sleeve has ridden up. I pretend I don't notice the new bruises.

"Where's Carol?" I ask.

"Out foraging."

I look up. Clouds are coming in, like it'll rain soon.

"She'll be back before it starts," Oliver tells me. "Oh. How did Judy like the cat?"

"Crap. I forgot about that."

I find the teddy next door in my room while Oliver and Judith wait for me. I haven't even sat down on my chair again by the time Judith crawls up my leg. I introduce het to Patty. She hugs it like she hugs Bean, wrapping every limb she owns around it, chanting, "Patty catty!" over and over.

Oliver grins.

We watch them for a minute, sitting side by side.

"I talked to Dad about going to Lorton."

Oliver looks at me.

I shrug, then decide I don't want to tell him the rest and say, "Do you still talk to yourself?" instead. I see him tense up.

"Sometimes. Guess," he says. "I don't know. What kind of question is that?"

"Sorry, just wanted to know."

He watches me sceptically.

"You make yourself feel bad about yourself," I say, "I know that. I do that too, sometimes, but it's better when I'm around you, and Enid, you know?"

Oliver just nods and looks at his hands.

"I like the forest," he says.

"Me too," I say.

"Know what I think?" he asks, sighing.

"What?"

"I think we're losers."

I smirk, thinking, _Me too._ Thinking, _We're a wreck. We're too quiet. We're missing parts of us. I've got too many scars and I'm too stubborn and I can be mean. And you've got a long nose and your hair is awful. I think you're mad. I think you're beautiful._

But I don't say anything.

"But, I don't know, I should still say thanks," he's saying, "for being my friend. You know. Even though I look at you like that sometimes."

He must not notice the way I'm looking at him, the way I get this feeling like when I look at fall, like sitting in the middle of the forest this time of year, watching the trees and the earth in all their golds and browns.

"That's really cool of you, you know?" he's still saying. "'Cause it would've been worse if you'd just... shut me out. But you didn't. You stuck around. And it's good, too, I think, for us to just be friends."

I feel my face curdle.

Again, we sit and watch Judith for a while.

"You're dad said no, didn't he?" Oliver asks.

"No," I answer.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"You know your mouth twitches when you lie, right?"

"No, it doesn't," I say, pressing my lips still to prove it.

He smirks. "Grimes."

My whole face burns when I hear that. I sigh in relent. "He did say we could go. Just not alone. I just figured that they're gonna be busy with Hilltop for a while... and yeah, they'll be back soon, but it won't be the end of it. We'll have to trade. Let people come here. Let some of us go over there. Whatever. It's all just gonna put Lorton further back in priority."

Oliver doesn't say anything.

"I just, don't want to see you get pushed to the side," I go on. "It always happens. Something always comes up, and you always let it."

"Because there are more important things to worry about," he says. "Like finding food and growing crops and—"

"Not putting your parents down."

His expression goes still and hard. Then he's standing up. My stomach barrels to my throat.

"Look, he _said_ we were capable," I argue, following him when he heads inside. I grab the door before it can shut. Bean shuffles inside. "We could get supplies from the armoury, and there's still some gas in the spare canister I syphoned. You'd drive and I'd be your number two. Your wingman."

"I'm not sure you know what a wingman is."

"We'd be back before they even got home," I insist. "Don't you want this?"

 _You say jump, he'll ask how high..._

"Of course, I want to," he says, "but this is stupid." I don't understand. I'm doing what he's wanted for months, stupid asshole.

"Come on, Oliver..."

He sighs, leaning against the door frame, pressing his temple to it.

"No, Carl."

Dad was wrong. Oliver didn't ask how high. Because there he is, closing the door, and here I am, dying inside, because the only thing worse than wanting something you could've had a long time ago is suddenly realising you've ran out of time to get it back...

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

Bean goes to his spot. I'm thinking about how Carl talks about putting my parents down like it's an itch he needs to scratch rather than _—oh, I don't know—_ my parents. Still, the lack of affinity makes closing the door on him a lot easier.

I go in my room and slump across my bed.

"Hi?"

I startle and stagger against my bedside table. "Jesus!"

"No," she says. "I'm Enid." She's sitting in the window, a glass of water and a Granola bar by her hip. I'm not sure when or how she got in here. "Jesus is the other omnipresent one."

"Funny," I say, picking myself up off the floor to take a seat next to her. The water and bar between us. "How did you know about him anyway?"

"Hm?"

"Jesus," I answer. "The new guy Daryl and Rick found. He was lurking around Alexandria last night. Everybody just left to take him back to Hilltop."

"I was talking about Jesus Christ," Enid says, frowning. Her hair is up in a bun, still wet from a shower. "There's a new guy? What's Hilltop?"

"Hilltop's his home. We're figuring out a trade with them."

She looks horrified.

"You're losing your touch," I say, hoping Enid might notice I want her to leave. I put a book in my pocket and head downstairs to start the dishes that were left last night, stalling from doing laundry.

I find my lost boots under Bean's mat. He has a collection of my shoes now. I don't mind so much. Enid is in the kitchen, sitting at the island. She looked a little annoyed at me for giving her the cold shoulder, but now she seems more curious. I steal a glance at her across the kitchen.

"Tink, what?" Judy-Tink never stuck. Judith Grimes is always going to be Little Ass Kicker. Enid seems to fit it better. Pan said: _Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small, they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it must be a complete change._ And I figure Enid suits that description well. "What?"

"Are you okay?" she asks me.

"Are you?"

"I asked you first."

I shrug at her. "Have to be."

"What're you gonna do today?" she asks, setting the bar and glass on the island.

"Masturbate furiously."

"Har har." I think she'll take a seat and eat the Granola bar, drink the glass of water too, but instead she slides them towards me. "Eat," she whispers.

I sigh.

"I was thinking you could get to cutting my hair?" she says then. "Shouldn't take too long. When you're done we'll go to school. B—"

" _Che palle,_ " I grumble into my palm. " _Io preferisco mangiare cibo per cani._ "

"I hate it when you do that." She tells me this a lot. She thinks I'm insulting her.

"Enid, I'm not going to school," I say, "not today."

She watches me.

"Can you just go?" I ask. "Please?"

"I'm worried about you."

"I'm fine," I laugh. And I tell her thank you, and she tells me she'll be back later, and when she leaves I eat and drink what she left me. By ten I've played my ukulele and serenaded _More Than a Feeling_ to Bean and changed my beanie and ridden my skateboard from the kitchen into the living room because nobody is here to tell me not to. By eleven I've nosed through the things Carol brought back from the pantry; arrowroot starch, water chestnut, sliced beetroot, and some weird jar half-full of something that looks like coffee, but I can't tell, and I'm too afraid for my taste buds to risk sticking a finger in. By eleven-thirty, I finally do the laundry, and since I haven't anything to do and nobody is still home yet, I decide to sneak into Carol's bedroom and look through her clothes. I do this sometimes. I put on her jackets and scarves and once I even wore one of her dresses—which is something I'd wanted to do for a while. I liked it but not so much without a pair of my jeans underneath, too draughty. Now though, I put on her cardigan and go downstairs. my nose is buried into my book when I look up to someone coming in through the door.

It's Carol, returned from foraging.

She is covered in blood.

"It's okay," she tells me. "Jus' a walker." I relax again as she sets down a bucket and my machete.

"What's that?" I ask.

"Acorns," she says, unsticking bloody fingers. "I'm gonna take a shower. Could you take your machete back for me? When you get back, pre-heat the oven and wash your hands." I don't remind her she doesn't need to use the plural.

I say, "Yes, ma'am," and do what I'm told. A while after I get back from the armoury, I hear her getting out of the shower and I go up and knock on her bedroom door. She must be getting dry on the other side because she doesn't open it.

"Yeah?"

"Want me to put the acorns in?" I ask.

"Yeah, thanks."

I'm about to leave, but she calls my name. I go back. She opens the door a tiny bit and sticks a freckly, damp arm out. "This?" She's holding out a dark green shirt on a hanger. Her hand disappears, then emerges a moment later with another blouse, floral. "Or this?"

"Erm," I say, because I have no idea. "Well, the flowers are cool."

"I wear the floral print all the time."

"I like it," I say, "like I like your mom jeans, and your old-people shoes, and when you carry a rifle like a purse, with grenades in your purse for no reason."

"You know about that?"

"Carl told me, while ago, before." _Probably doesn't remember it anymore though._

"Hm."

"I like the floral," I say again.

"Maybe," she replies, "if I put my blue cardigan over it."

I back away, suddenly aware of what I've been wearing this whole time. "Err, cool. Later..."

"Oliver..."

I cringe.

"Can I have my blue cardigan back?"

Sighing, I take it off and hand it over.

"And quit putting my clothes back in the wrong places."

I laugh, relieved. She closes her door again. I spend the next few minutes putting acorns into trays and baking them until she comes down with her new attire. I tell her she's beautiful and she tells me I'm a troll so I curtsey (forgetting that I'm probably meant to bow) and tell her I'll be under my bridge if she needs me.

As she goes about preparing a large batch of cookies, I sit at the foot of the staircase with Bean and my book _This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It_. Thankfully, it's not full of spiders. It does, however, have paper spiders all over the cover which still make me uncomfortable.

I read: _"The zombie looks like a man, walks like a man, eats and otherwise functions fully, yet is devoid of the spark. It represents the nagging doubt that lays deep in the heart of even the most zealous believer: behind all of your pretty songs and stained glass, this is what you really are. Shambling meat. Our true fear of the zombie was never that its bite would turn us into one of them. Our fear is that we are already zombies."_

I've never heard the word zombie before but they sound a lot like walkers, only annoyingly political and pretentious. I get another headache. It makes my eyes hurt, so I look up at things further away like the kitchen stools and the trees outside and Carol while she goes about mixing.

"Beetroot?" I ask when I figure out why the contents of the bowl have turned a brilliant shade of magenta. Carol makes a proud _uh-huh_ noise.

"Beet instead of apples," she says.

"Apples instead of eggs," I answer.

"Exactly."

I give a sceptical look across the room, but laugh anyway.

"It's just as good," she tells me, "better, actually."

I don't know how I feel about this, like I didn't know how I felt about the apples, only this time I'm about a thousand times more apprehensive. I pet Bean's coat and day dream about rainbow cookies, and at one point, Carol asks how my day was. I tell her it was fine. We talk about Hilltop and Jesus, and then she gives me tips about how I should cut Enid's hair later because I ask her, and then she's just looking at me.

"What?" I ask.

"How are you?"

"I'm alright," I say, meaning it.

* * *

 **Notes**

Thank you **dearpureblood** for the music on 8tracks. The two playlists are called _Just Oliver_ and _We're a whole person. We are sempiternal._

Thanks, **Fede** for the Italian help.

Feel like I've needed to write cardigan-wearing, curtsying Oliver for a while now. Also weirdly satisfied that he's finally told Carl where to put it (however politely).

 **Preview: Haircuts are postponed and plans for mas-genocide are created, and as "alright" as Oliver says he is now, when it comes down to it, his own quiet in his own head are still going to have their demons, and they aren't just going to go away from a few cookies and acorns.**

As always,  
Happy reading.


	14. Not Tomorrow Yet, Part 1: Drowning

**BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** Agh, I'm scared you'll hate me.

 **The Sorrowful Deity** Jesus jokes are awesome.

 **fandomismylife** I had such a hard time figuring out how to write that little interaction with Abraham, I'm so glad you saw it.

 **ImNotThatPerfect** You're using All Time Low lyrics in reviews? *squints approvingly*

 **Rolochan** Oh, I hope you're feeling better! Rick has a habit of underestimating things (SAVIOURS), underestimating Oliver, especially lately. I guess Oliver hasn't really spoken much about how he feels about his breakup with Carl and so he's sort of filled in the blanks himself. Ah, thanks for that prompt. It inspired a chapter in the chapter when Enid gave Maggie a haircut. And yes, definitely. Oliver blames himself for everything and it makes his mind hurt himself, which is awful for him. Thank you for the recs!

 **The Flash Fanatic** He says he loves you too!

 **Guest** This chapter love, love, loves you too!

 **Blood on my Machete** Augh, the voice in his head is awful! Yeah, he has a little. Oh, dear, be careful what you wish for.

 **Natsumo Fujoshit you** Yes. It's just gonna take like a while... (: you don't have to... smoke... the... weeds...? Honestly not sure it that was a typo but I keep just imagining your avatar with a dandelion week sticking out of his mouth.

* * *

 _Friendly warning: Possible self-harm triggers._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

The cookies were great. Carol put them in a million Tupperware boxes and left to share them out around the community a few minutes ago.

Now though, it begins to rain.

I sit at the bottom of the staircase, side door open, grey clouds outside and the sound of rain on wood and roof filling my ears thickly. I practice ukulele...

 _"When I'm tired and thinking cold,  
I_ – shit."

Messed up a chord.

"D... no."

Mess it up again.

" _D-major... La, da, da, da –  
I hide in my music, forget the day,  
and dream of a girl I used to know.  
I closed my eyes and she slipped away.  
She slipped away."_

Cue ridiculous amounts of over exaggerated strumming and head banging, with wild scrunched up facial expressions. I'm about to get into the chorus, _oh boy,_ speeding ahead at full Rock  & Roll speed, but someone is coming up the steps outside so I quickly smack my bandage to the strings to silence them with a _bramuk!_

Rain is all I can hear for a second.

"You got good."

"Oh. Enid. Hey."

She steps inside to see me. "Didn't know you could still play with one hand. It's the song Carl was humming yesterday, right?"

I shrug, glad at least that she couldn't see me. I don't play in front of people anymore, let alone sing, let _let_ alone head bang.

"Helps my headaches," I mumble. "But if I do it long enough it starts to hurt my scar. Bandage helps, but, I still can't do individual plucks unless they're for strings G or A so I kinda have to work around it to make it sound right... uh, sorry. Rambling."

She smirks. "Thought you'd want your dog back."

Bean emerges from behind her, peering into the house cautiously. Carol had chased him out after he stole some cookies off from the counter.

"Don't worry, man," I tell him. "Carol's out."

Enid snickers and takes a seat with me on the step, only not beside me. Behind me. Her knees either side of my shoulders. She pulls off my beanie and puts her chin on the top of my head; pixie-sweet all over right now.

"What've you been up to?" I ask her.

"Carol gave me cookies." I feel her jaw move against my skull.

"Did you like them?"

"They were pink."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

I'm grinning. So is she, but it fades – I feel it because she's pressing mouth to my hair now.

"What is it?" I ask.

"They're back," she tells me. "Rick and the others. Parked up outside the pantry a little while ago."

I get up. "Why didn't you say sooner?!"

She's looking at me very carefully. "They're holding a meeting. I heard Rick tell Carol there's gonna be a fight."

"Where are they?"

She sighs. "In the church."

* * *

Everybody's inside. We find a secluded spot outside under one of the church windows, out of the rain, arriving in time to hear Rick explaining about someone called Craig, Jesus' friend from Hilltop, who was taken captive by a different group called the Saviors yesterday. The Saviors are the Hilltop Colony's rivalries, or... bosses. It's weird. But the jist of it is that they're some big, bad, scary group that likes to take undeserved ownership of things that don't belong to them.

 ** _Sounds familiar.  
_** _It sounds like some kind of lame comic book plot or something.  
 **Only it's real, and they're dangerous.  
** And we aren't?_

In order to get Craig back, someone else from Hilltop, Craig's brother, was blackmailed, by the Saviors, to betray and kill their leader, Gregory, but Rick killed him, saved Gregory, and in doing that earned us all the food they brought back, only _also_ doing that has made Alexandria aware of how close to home the Saviors are, which makes us vulnerable.

It's decided that Carol, Noah, Daryl, Rick, Michonne, Glenn, Maggie, Rosita, Abraham, Tara, Heath, Gabriel and Jesus are going to go to the Saviors' compound tomorrow, along with another guy from Hilltop, Andy, who can help us, and when I peek through the window, I see he is in his thirties, with mouse-brown hair, light skin, and a bulky body.

"We can work with the Hilltop," Rick is saying. "Maggie hammered out a deal. We're gettin' food –eggs, butter, fresh vegetables. But they're not just givin' it away. These Saviors, they almost killed Sasha, Daryl and Abraham on the road. Now, sooner or later, they would've found us, just like those Wolves did. Jus' like Jesus did. They woulda killed someone, or some of us, and then they would try to _own_ us, and we would try to stop them. But by then, in that kind of fight, low on food, we could lose. This is the only way to be sure, as sure as we can get, that we win."

I'm looking at the faux on Enid's coat and she is watching a beetle crawl up the church wall next to my hand. It has small rain droplets on its shell. Dark rainbows shimmer in its blackness. I leave it alone, even when it scurries across my thumb.

"And we have to win. We do this for the Hilltop, it's how we keep this place – it's how we feed this place. This needs to be a group decision. If anybody objects, here's your chance to say your piece."

We hear somebody get up.

"You're sure we can do it?" Morgan. "We can beat them?"

I grind my teeth. I have a problem with him right now. Noah told me what happened, made me swear on my life I wouldn't tell anybody. Noah said that when the herd came he'd been hiding with Rosita, Tara and Eugene in a brownstone apartment garage. When they'd gotten inside, to what now is the confinement room, they found that Morgan, Carol and Denise were in there, only, so was a Wolf. The leader of the savage group, actually. Morgan had been hiding him in there to try to... rehabilitate him. Carol tried to kill him but Morgan wouldn't let her. He threw her to the ground and knocked her out, and then the Wolf attacked Morgan and took Denise captive, and that was the moment Noah and the others got in there. The Wolf had a knife to Denise's throat, told them to lay down their weapons, and he got away with her. If Carol hadn't woken up a little while later to finally kill him, he would have gotten away with Denise.

Because of Morgan, Carol was hurt. Because of Morgan, Denise was kidnapped and could have died.

"What this group has done," Rick replies, "what we've learned, what we've become, all of us – yes, I'm sure."

"Then all we have to do is just tell'm that," Morgan says.

"They don't compromise."

"This isn't a compromise," Morgan talks over him. "It's a choice you give'm. It's a way out, for them and for us."

"We try and talk to the Saviors, we give up our advantage, our safety?" Rick says. "No, we have to come for _them_ before they come for us. We can't leave them alive."

"Where there's life, there's possibility."

"Of them hitting us!"

"We're not trapped in this. None of you are trapped in this."

"Morgan... They always come back."

"Come back when they're dead, too."

"Yeah, we'll stop them," Rick says. "We have before."

"I'm not talkin' about the walkers."

"Morgan wants to talk to them first," Rick says to everybody. "I think that would be a mistake, but it's not up to me. I'll talk to the people still at home. I'll discuss it with the people on guard now, too, but who else wants to approach the Saviors, talk to them first?"

"What happened here, we won't let that happen again," Aaron is saying. "I won't."

I look at Enid. I can't tell what she's thinking. I'm thinking that The Saviors are a threat and that they need to die. After all this time reading comics and singing songs and eating cookies, I forgot. I'm the bad guy.

"Looks like it's settled," Rick says finally. "We know exactly what this is. We don't shy from it, we live. We kill them all."

 _"GO THROUGH THE FENCES.  
IN YOUR CARS.  
GET YOUR GUNS.  
WE GO IN.  
KILL THEM ALL!"_

I focus on the damp wood under my palm, and I only realise I'm shaking when Enid touches my shin with her knuckle. "You okay?" She's staring at me. I swallow and nod and we get back to listening.

"We don't all have to kill," Rick goes on. "But, if people are gonna stay here, they do have to accept it."

Everybody starts to leave and it's only because Enid grabs my collar and yanks that we aren't spotted.

"I'll see you," I tell her once we're back on the street, "cut your hair."

"Not today?" she asks.

"No," I answer. "I wanna talk to the others. Figure out where we're at."

She nods.

"See what else you can get out of Olivia."

"Report back," she tells us.

"Will."

We lock pinkie fingers in promise—Enid tells me if I tell anybody we do this she'll cut off one of my testicles.

"Hey, can I have Bean tonight?" she asks, breaking away for the pantry house. I nod. Enid pats her leg. "Come-Bean." He trots after her.

I go home. Carl is waiting for me on the porch with Judith.

"What've you been up to?" he asks.

"Oh. Nothing much," I lie, poking Judy's nose. "You?"

"Babysitting, the usual." Carl shrugs.

We stand here for a moment, wondering what to do. I think he wants me to invite him inside. And as much as I'm not going to hold a grudge over what happened earlier, I don't feel in the mood to hang out right now. It's still raining; small dew drops are forming in his hair and Judith's eyelashes.

I start to walk away.

"I'm overdue!" he blurts, so I turn to him. "I'm... I'm overdue."

"Err."

"I was meant to make Noah a wooden keychain yesterday but I haven't finished it yet. Could you tell him?"

"Yeah. Sure."

I'm about to walk away again but he says something else.

"Wanna do PT later?"

"No."

He frowns. "Why?"

"Because whenever we do PT together, it's just me sitting against a wall while you try not to hit me with a tennis ball."

"We can do a different PT."

"Yeah?"

Carl shrugs. I cross my arms but sympathy keeps me from the front door. This is the biggest difference I've noticed in Carl since he woke up. He isn't very comfortable alone. I mean, I'm not either but I still prefer it most of the time over awkward interactions. But not Carl. Carl will fill his free time with his sister or me or Enid or the others. Anybody. Even if he's doing nothing. So long as he isn't doing nothing alone. I don't think he's afraid of being alone, I just think he isn't used to it. He's never actually _been_ alone in his life.

I sigh, and then I put my thumb up. Carl looks at it.

"Put yours up, too," I say.

"Why?"

 _I'm entertaining you._ "Depth perception," I answer, "PT." He puts his thumb up and I reach out and turn it up-side down for him. His hands are callused and damp and cold. Carl gets the picture, and attempts to touch the end of our thumbs.

He misses by an inch too close to me.

"Dammit."

"Strike one," I say.

"How many strikes do I have?" he asks. Rain is starting to pour from the roof gutters. Carl and Judith are going to get wet just walking next door.

"Probably an infinite supply," I answer, wondering why I'm still out here.

He laughs, hopping to support Judith. "What why?"

I put my hand down. "Well, you survived getting shot in the face. I'm pretty sure that gives you an infinite supply of strikes."

"How many do you have?"

"Four?" I shrug.

"Seems a little unfair." He pulls my hand up again. When he tries the PT, he barely catches my thumbnail.

"Strike two," I say, then continue the conversation: "Yeah. Maybe a little, but I mean, I've survived a shit tonne of stuff I shouldn't have already so I figure I've used up most of my strikes."

He grins and frowns at the same time. "What do you mean?"

 _Shit,_ I think. _Didn't mean for 'strikes' to suddenly turn into 'lives'_. And then, suddenly, the sadness hits me, like I've just lost my breath, drowned as some inside pocket of air is finally washed away. I can't tell if he notices, but he must because his smile twitches away.

"I'm... I'm gonna head inside," I say.

Carl fidgets. "Look, about earlier. I'm—"

"It's cool," I interrupt him. "Later, man."

Inside, I leave my raincoat to dry on the rack and get to doing mirror therapy in my bedroom alone. Today it doesn't help. I lie back on the floor and stare at the ceiling. I hear Noah arrive home. He must know I'm in here because he knocks once, says, "I'll be next door," and then minutes later I can hear him scribbling into his notes, tapping his feet to the wood floor, his chair scraping sometimes. I can also hear Carl doing physical therapy over in his house...

 _Thonk.  
Thonk.  
Thonk.  
Thonk._

I've counted ninety-one so far.

 _Thonk._

Ninety-two.

I can't tell if it's so much driving me crazy as much as it's comforting me, in a weird way, just because he is there, close, but not too close. Like parallel lines.

Someone else comes into the house. They're heading up the staircase. When they knock on my door I sit up and say, "Avanti, avanti," and Carol walks in. She goes to the window and shuts it—the _thonk_ ing stops. I push the mirror back under my bed, about to grab my ukulele instead but she doesn't leave with my laundry or trash like she usually does when she comes in.

"Everything alright?" I ask her.

"Did you hear about tomorrow?"

"Yeah," I say, skipping out the part about how.

"I'm gonna talk to Rick," she says, serious and pensive, "'bout you comin' with us, if you want. Wanted to ask you first."

"Oh," I say. Last time I left the wall was for a driving lesson, and sure, I can shoot a hand gun and use a knife alright, but — "Do you think he'll be okay with it? I mean, of course, I'll go into the compound and—"

"No, no," Carol interrupts me. She grabs my chair and sets it in front of me, sitting on it backwards. "You're gonna be waiting outside, keeping watch with me while the others go in."

I frown. "Then, why am I going?"

She takes a breath.

"Carol..."

"Rick talked to me about something, earlier," Carol tells me. "I've been thinking about it for months, really."

"What?" I ask.

"Lorton," Carol says. I might laugh at her for this, I can't tell. Maybe I just cough. "Hear you've wanted to put your parents down since the road."

My silence is enough affirmation.

"Carl mentioned it to Rick. Several times, by what Rick said. I didn't even know he remembered."

"He doesn't," I tell her. "I just told him again."

She _hmm_ s, like she doesn't think that's entirely true. If I think about that too much my chest caves in.

"How come you've never told me about this?" Carol asks then.

My shoulders shrug. "Just, wasn't important enough."

"Of course it is," she says. "We've been in Alexandria almost a year."

"It wasn't important enough."

"You mean _you_ weren't?"

Again, I shrug.

Carol sighs. I listen to the rain outside. When I glance back at her, Carol is looking directly into my eyes. I look into hers too. They're that strange type of silver and blue that I feel like I've grown up with, and I have, really. I've spent more time knowing Carol than anybody since before. Even Carl. Even my brother. Her eyes are the pair I've known the longest. Thing is, they're still rusting. It worries me. Worries me like how Enid's hair is too long and how Carl behaves out in the woods and how Judith rides Bean around the house and how big our world is becoming.

I'm scared of Carol rusting away completely.

"Me and you," Carol says. "We'll go. Once they're done in the compound. You and me are gonna take a car to Lorton so you can put your parents down."

My chest bursts open, then seals shut. I don't say anything. I'm giving her time to take it back if she needs to, like I already know this is never going to happen.

"Oliver?"

I blink a few times. "Err."

She steps off the chair and crouches in front of me, then puts a hand on my cheek and kisses the side of my head. I get this odd urge to suddenly wrap my arms around her leg and sit on her foot, keep holding on forever. In my head, I tell her that I would destroy myself for her. Outside my head, I tell her, "Thank you," and she tells me, "I'll go make supper," and then she leaves the room.

* * *

 _'And when the flames come up  
_ _I see the fire in your eyes  
_ _And when the flames come up  
_ _I can hear alone wolf cry_

 _Maybe you are stronger than I was  
But trust me 'cause I know  
The woods get what they want  
The wolves will chase you down  
Then bring you to your knees  
Run you ragged to the ground  
Just like they did to me...'_

 _You dream of a child who is crying. When you touch their shoulder, they crumble to dust under your fingertips, bursting into fireflies that flutter out of your grasp as you try to grab hold of them. But they leave specks of light behind on you, like fairy dust, only it stings like acid. You scream and thrash at yourself, and then you fall, spiral, spin, out of control, twisting your body and snatching the air for something to save you._

 _You hit and end and it kills you._

 _Only it doesn't, because you're still alive._

 _You heave into the floor. It's smooth and cold, like glass, only it's murky and moving and hard to see through. But you do see something. It jerks, struggles. Then a hand slams into your face, only it stops just before, white against some invisible pressure between you. You still stagger back and yelp, slipping across the glass. More hands slam at it, at you, and when you stumble to your feet you finally see why. They're all there, under the end, trapped and drowning in the nothingness. You collapse to your knees and punch the glass. You watch them fight. You watch all of them fight. And then you drown in the grief and the guilt. Because it's you on the wrong side. You are the one dying and they cannot save you anymore..._

* * *

Paralysed. That's me.

I hate this.

I know I'm not drowning and I know that this feeling will pass but God this is awful. It takes everything I have just to reach out and switch off my stereo—I'd fallen asleep with it on again. I manage to get the rest of my body to work when I start feeling ill, clambering out of the room and across the hallway into the bathroom. I hunch over the toilet and wait, and then the yacking begins, but it ends quickly. I flush, brush my teeth again and try to drink some water. I throw that up, too. I brush again.

Outside, it's still raining. Before, while falling asleep, I could hear it surrounding the whole house like a blanket. Nostalgic, I think back to a time when I thought Carl what the kind of boy who belonged to the rain. I still think that, maybe.

I've been sleeping all evening since supper, along with most of the others. Tomorrow is going to run on all night, and with Noah going on another run right after, and Carol and I driving to Lorton, we've needed the extra rest.

I sit on the floor and I pray into my knuckles.

 _Dear, God.  
Tomorrow.  
I'm afraid of tomorrow.  
...amen._

I don't pray a lot, hardly ever, actually, but this prayer's stuck in my head since falling asleep, since the rain. Because I am afraid of tomorrow. I know that prayers are meant to be asking for things, or, I don't know, counting your blessings, but there just isn't anything else I want to say. I am just afraid.

My right arm is sore. Bruised. I can only reach the one, unless I hit the other against things, but that makes noise so I don't do that very often. My right arm, though, I don't remember bruising, but I know it must have been while I was trying to fall asleep. Pretty screwed; sinning and praying at the same time. Whatever. It's the best I've got. Well, it's the worst I've got... but it's _all_ I've got.

 _I need to go back to my bedroom.  
 **Nope.  
** I need to be ready for tomorrow.  
 **No you don't.  
** I need to sleep.  
 **Not a chance.  
** I need to bruise.  
 **Yeah... Yeah, you do.**_

It hurts too much on my arm so I do it on my stomach and chest instead. I stop after long enough, when my head spins and I start to feel dizzy. This feeling is the goal though, like some drug high. A hurt to dull the hurt. Only for a time, I know. But again, it's all I have.

 _All I have._

Unsteady, I pull myself to my feet and make my way back to my bedroom, feeling along the walls, only I'm stepping back. I don't want to be in my own quiet, in my own dark, with all the ghosts. Not tonight.

 ** _Handle this.  
_** _I can't.  
 **There's something wrong with you.  
** I know.  
 **Don't bother anybody.  
** I'll die.  
 **...I'm counting on it.**_

Light. I see it switch on around the edges of Carol's bedroom door and draw to it like a moth to flame. I press my palm, then my ear, and I hear it; pen to paper from inside. I listen and close my eyes and think about the sound. I think about the door, the feel of my palm against wood. When I knock four times, softly, the writing stops.

I swallow.

"Someone there?"

"Carol..." I'm shuddering. I'm whispering.

"Oliver," she answers. I push the door open. She's putting her journal on the bedside table. Her eyes are open wide in worry. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

I try to say I'm fine, only I shake my head.

"Another nightmare?" This has happened before. She's already holding out her arms. Still, I avoid giving in yet. I hug myself, holding the ends of my sleeve over my stump to hide the bruises.

"Hey. Um. Err. How's it?"

"It's alright. How are you?"

"Good," I say, only my voice cracks. "I'm fine." And then I tell her, "I'm going mad."

"Come here."

I take her hand. She lets me hide under the covers and waits for me to stop crying. When I do, she asks me what my nightmare was about, and I tell her I don't remember all of it, murmuring it into her pyjama pants. I say, "I just know that I was dying. I just know that lots of other people were dying, too." And then she tells me she left a cookie for Sam on his grave today and I start crying my eyes out. I tell her that I killed him. And she tells me that she knows. She tells me that she killed him too.

"Carol."

"Shh."

"Carol, I wanna hurt me so bad!"

" _Shh!_ " She holds me tight. "Oliver, shh."

"I wanna hurt me so bad," I sob. "It's all my fault."

"Did you hurt yourself again?"

I shake my head. "I can't..."

"You can't? You can't what?"

"I can't help it!" I weep, dissolving in the tears. "Ican'thelpit. Ihavetodoit."

" _Why?_ Why?"

I don't know what to say or how to say it. Before I can do anything, she pulls my left sleeve up and sees the damage. She looks at my shoulders, my chest, all the places I've been able to reach, and then she can't bear it anymore. Her breath is shaking and her face is wet and flushed, and then she's just holding me, shushing me, rubbing my bruises gently and carefully, like it's hurting her just as much, like she has no idea what else to do anymore.

"Be kinder to yourself," she whispers into my hair, "the whole world is already so unkind."

* * *

Somehow, I'd fallen asleep. I wake up to Carol asking me where I put her cigarettes. It's still dark. I feel heavy and tired and worn. I must not've been asleep long.

"Come on, what did you do with them this time?"

I shrug, lying.

"Oliver..."

"Those things will kill you," I answer.

"Oliver."

I relent. "They're in the fridge, back top shelf."

She glares at me.

"Nobody looks there," I mumble. "It's where you used to hide the chocolate."

"Yeah, but you kept stealing it."

"You wouldn't have looked there though, right?"

She sighs.

"Where do you keep the chocolate now, by the way?" She doesn't answer me, instead says, "Thank you," and makes to leave. "Carol?"

"Yeah."

"Are you alright?"

"Have to be."

I listen to her leave, and for a while I wait up for her to come back. I like Carol's bedroom. I spend a lot of time in here. I like the brown-cream-patterned sheets and the matching curtains. I like the tall brown lamp on her night stand and all the lotions and perfumes she's got there, like jasmine and amber and lavender. She's left her journal on the bedside table. She was writing in it a while ago as I dozed off. It's open, the notebook, and I do that thing where I only catch one word and can't look away even though I should...

 _'R  
K, D  
L  
Terminus/Courtyard 3?  
Candle Woman 4  
Ws 7_

 _(18)'_

I think it's a list of people she's killed, except a lot of it doesn't make sense. She didn't kill Ryan, the _R_ , but if she counts his death as her fault then why wouldn't she count Erin? And I think she's forgotten that the third Termite was killed by me, or maybe she hasn't. Maybe that's why the question mark is there.

She's been gone a while now. I get too worried, and restless, so I go looking for her. She isn't in the house, or outside on the porch. The community isn't totally dark, even though it's nightfall. The moon's too bright and stubborn for that, even with the clouds coming in. I stick close to the wall, keeping quiet. Usually, when Carol wanders, she sticks to the outskirts of the community.

 ** _Unless she's left.  
_** _She wouldn't.  
 **She has before.**_

I head for the name wall, thinking maybe she's sitting and smoking in the shelter of the gazebo. I'm half way there before I spot her, the small blurry orange glow of a cigarette between her fingers. A smoke cloud leaves her mouth, and on cue, she turns for the gazebo.

"Those things'll kill you." She stops in the middle of the street at Tobin's voice. He's sitting on his porch. I hide before either of them see me. Carol sighs.

"I've heard," she says.

"You got another one?"

"Not for you."

"Why's that?"

" _'Cause,_ " she answers, "asshole."

"Okay..."

I think she'll walk away.

She sits with him. I lean my back against someone's garage and feel the wet on my hand and shoulder-blades.

"Couldn't sleep either?" I hear Tobin ask her.

"Never could sleep," Carol replies.

"Hm—Hey. Why's your pack so cold?"

"Oliver," Carol replies, "hid them in the fridge again."

Tobin chuckles.

"He's got a habit of tryin'a save my life."

Tobin makes a noise. "Terrible."

"Gotta remember to thank him, one day."

"Worried about tomorrow," Tobin tells her.

"You goin'?" she asks him.

"No. You are." Tobin sounds like he takes a drag. "You can do things that – that just terrify me."

"How? How do you think I do those things?"

"You're a mom..."

"I was."

"You _are_."

"No – Oliver... He doesn't see me as that. Can't... not anymore."

Guilt hits me in the stomach.

"No," Tobin insists. "It – it's not the cookies or the – the smiles. It's the hard stuff. The scary stuff. It's... _how_ you can do it. It's strength. You're a mom to that boy. You're a mom to most of the people here."

"To you, too?"

"No. You're somethin' else to me."

I don't see it but I know they kiss. Carol says, "It's not tomorrow yet," and I decide that I should've left a long time ago. It wasn't my place to come after her tonight. She is trying, and she deserves to be alright, we all do. So, yes, I decide I will leave. I decide I will find the one person who has been there for me through all of this. The one person who I can maybe be alright with, too.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

I'm on his roof, again. Noah isn't in there. He's sleeping in his own bed. I knock on Oliver's window. Not a stir. Not even from Bean. His bed is empty. The rain is hard and I'm shivering. Oliver must be at Enid's. I climb down.

I should go back home, but I don't. I head to the pantry. It's stupid, how willing I am to disappoint myself. I know that he'll be there with Enid and I know they'll be up late watching a movie or reading comics, having a good time. I know that when I knock on the window they'll get awkward and uncomfortable and say I can join even though they don't really mean it.

And I'm right, only, Oliver just arrived at her door.

I watch from across the street in the cover of some shadowy trees. The rain is worse, pouring. My clothes and bandage are drenched through. His too, by how hunched his shoulders are and clumped his hair is.

Enid asks him what he's doing here. He says sorry for waking her. Bean is behind her legs, sniffing. Enid lets Oliver inside. When the door is shut, I watch them through the window. Enid gets a towel for him. After he's dry(ish) they take a seat on the kitchen counter and talk about things I can't hear.

He doesn't even know I'm here and there's a whole wall between us, and he looks sad and tired and it makes me sad and tired, too.

He doesn't even know I'm here and there's a whole wall between us, and she's making him smile, and laugh. Laugh his ass off. He can't even stop.

He doesn't even know I'm here and there's a whole wall between us, and I can't stop smiling either. Watching him, hearing his laugh; it makes me so glad.

He doesn't even know I'm here and there's a whole wall between us, and then they stop laughing, and I'm looking at Oliver's face. He looks strange. Enid is talking.

He doesn't even know I'm here and there's a whole wall between us, and they kiss. They kiss. Oliver and Enid kiss. I must shut my eyes. I must turn away. Because I look at them again, losing air and blood and skeleton, and I catch their shadows, their tangled hands and stumbling heels, as they disappear up the staircase together.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Hell_ by Olivver the Kid. As well as just the name/band being sickeningly ironic and disgustingly coincidental, it's actually like a super pretty fucking amazing song. Thanks for the playlist, dearpureblood. (Find it on 8tracks dot com "Just Oliver")

Anyway, Oliver says it's not what it looks like and that he can explain... lol jk no he can't. Also, despite what just happened this isn't supposed to be all love triangle-y. Swear it. It will make sense eventually. And I would like to point out the character development from chapter 5 to 14. . . Oliver chose not to squash the beetle this time.

Disclaimer: I'm British, so I spell Saviors like Saviours, so excuse me if I get that muddled.

 **Preview: Preparations for taking on the Saviors begins. Everybody's just kind of mad and tense and there's some oldie music and dancing and cookies and some talk and elaboration about what (really) happened the night before.**

As always,  
Happy reading.


	15. Not Tomorrow Yet, Part 2: Like That

**The Sorrowful Deity** I wouldn't hold my breath.

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** Poor kid.

 **Hongo En** Thanks, and for the song. glad to make you feel the feels.

 **dearpureblood** *sending Jesus

 **Uriel867** Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.

 **Blood on my Machete** I ship it.

 **Guest** thanks!

 **Natsumo Fujoshi you** That feckin' wall... Ps. Please explain the dandelion.

 **JRH18** Aha noooooo... thank you.

* * *

 _Another chapter, from Gael, who is currently sitting in the corner of a nice library because he needed WiFi..._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

" _Het-hem..._ "

As I wake up, a pair of thick, black, square spectacles are glaring down at me. I startle, pushing myself back into Enid, who is warm and sleeping.

"Hello, Oliver," Olivia says.

"Olivia." I rub my eyes, pull my comforter up. A headache starts. " _Uughh._ "

"Enid?"

She stirs and glances over her shoulder, hair flopping messy across her face. Olivia's hip pops out. She's carrying a laundry basket under her arm. I see my pants inside it.

" _Enid..._ "

She sits up, frowning.

"Relax. He stays over sometimes, he's just usually gone by now is all."

"I'm _sorry_ ," Olivia says. She pushed her glasses up her nose. "You could at least tell me you've got someone over. I live here, too."

"Yeah, well that's why people usually knock," Enid mutters.

"Yeah, well..." Olivia snatches my shirt from the floor and shakes it. "I didn't think you'd have _shirtless_ guests!"

"He's not shirtless."

Enid pulls the covers down.

"He's wearing _my_ blouse!"

"His clothes were wet."

"Then give him _your_ clothes!"

She did. I'm wearing Enid's polka-dotted pink pyjama pants. Thankfully, Enid doesn't feel the need to show Olivia those.

"I said relax," Enid insists.

Olivia huffs. "Enid, you said you'd help me with supplying for their run today."

I sit bolt upright.

Olivia frowns at me.

Bean's head lifts from the floor.

"Shit, what time is it?" I ask, scampering out of the bed and pulling on my sneakers. Olivia staggers backwards.

"About half-seven."

"I gotta go," I blurt, already down the hallway and running out of the house through the pantry. Bean follows me, but stops once I'm on the street. Then I'm rocketing through backyards and around the lake to the front gate. Nobody is there yet. I panic, thinking they've gone without me, that I've missed my only chance to go home, but then I see the cars still parked along the wall so I head back to the second house. Only, fate pulls a short-straw when Carol and I manage to turn down our street from opposite blocks at almost the same moment.

 _Shit._

The rain stopped early this morning. The ground is damp and the air is humid and cool and smells of petrichor.

"Where've you been?" Carol asks me, meeting me on the side-walk.

"Where have you been?" I ask in the same tone.

An awkward exchange takes place, filled with frowns and fidgety hands and eyes that don't like looking at each other. It's an odd type of awkward though, an awkward like: _I don't really know where I've been. I've been inside my own head, only, inside somebody else's, too. I've been trying, only, I still feel the same. I've been missing something that I'm still not willing to face up to yet..._

We head to the second house without answering each other. Carol still has the upper hand, since she at least managed to return in her own attire. I must look ridiculous. My collar fell while I was running, exposing collarbone and armpit and nipple. I pull it up.

Once in the house, I shower and change and Carol tells me to take the left over cookies and roasted acorns next door and spend some time over there before the run.

"We're leaving at noon. Don't be late."

"Won't."

I grab my toothbrush and another CD as I go. I've been listening to music pretty religiously for the last few months. I'll study songs and teach myself how to re-create them with my ukulele. Sometimes I write my own, but they're all pretty lame. This CD's an oldie but a goodie though, I think, even though Noah tells me that I've got worse taste in music than Rick. But I don't know if he means it because he's always whistling the tunes while he works.

Inside the first house, Rick and Michonne are in the kitchen. They're both grinning at the battery-operated baby monitor. Rick is hugging her from behind with his chin tucked into the crook of her neck, whispering and giggling. I've never heard Rick giggle. I'm pulling awkward faces when they notice me. They step apart, pinking.

"Hey," "Oliver."

I'm not sure if that was on purpose or a coincidence. Looks like they aren't sure either by the glance they give each other. Michonne grins at him. I snort. Rick clears his throat.

"Carol said to give you these," I tell them. They take a few acorns each from the container. They share one cookie and tell me to share the with Carl. "He upstairs?"

"Yeah."

"Probably still asleep."

"Okay—hey, can I borrow some toothpaste?"

"Ran out," Michonne grimaces. "But you can use the baking soda mix I made."

"Thanks." I wave my toothbrush.

"Fair warning: it's a little strong," Rick says. Michonne gives him an unimpressed glare that he ignores.

"Better than soap," I shrug, disappearing upstairs. I brush my teeth. The mix _is_ strong. Strong enough I yelp and have to spit and run my tongue under the tap.

Carl is still asleep when I tiptoe across his bedroom and crouch in front of him. I remember doing this once and licking his face to wake him. I'm half convinced to do it again. I don't because I'm still brushing my teeth, so instead I sing, "Gr _iiii_ mes."

His nose twitches.

I hold the toothbrush between my teeth and poke him.

"Show me your blue, young sir."

I keep brushing for a second while he rouses, and then he opens his eyes.

"Hey, man," I grin.

Carl turns over.

I sigh through my toothbrush. _He's in one of_ those _moods._ I finish brushing in the bathroom, leaving my toothbrush on the sink before going back into his room. He's still asleep, or pretending to be. He's frowning. I sit on the floor with my back to him, figuring it's best to wait for him to come out of his shell first—like a hermit crab. A _grumpy_ hermit crab.

I start grinning thinking of Carl as a crab, so I distract myself tapping the tune of _You are My Sunshine_ into my thigh. I want to start getting into piano. This past summer, Denise taught me to play a few parts of _Für Elise_ on her piano. She did the right hand and I did the left, and after a time I did okay, but when she started trying to teach me _Rondo alla Turca_ I got so invested trying to keep up with her that I fell off my chair. Denise laughed so hard she had to take a break.

I look up to Carl. "I brought cookies for you guys."

He frowns a little harder.

"Well, one," I whisper. "But it's still for you, so..."

"Go away, Oliver."

"Can't," I reply. "Carol said I had to stay." Okay, fine, some... artistic licence there, but whatever. I clamber up and jump across the bed to sit against beside him. The mattress bounces. Carl scowls at the ceiling. He pinches the bridge of his nose the same way his father does.

"You're going to Lorton," he says after a moment, "Dad told me last night."

Smiling, I cuff my jean legs twice over and decide I like them that way. "Can't, really... figure out what I'm feeling about it all, just yet."

"Maybe you're a walker," Carl deadpans.

He rolls over.

"There something you want, Oliver?"

"No," I answer, "just thought you'd wanna hang out for a while, before I go." I realise I didn't take my inhalers this morning. Jumping across beds and running through communities isn't a good idea when you're asthmatic. Carl glances at me but doesn't speak, so I keep talking: "Found another CD from Betsy and David's old house. Some old band. _The Foundations._ It's pretty good. Brought it with me."

"Hm?"

I cough. "Are you okay?"

"Yep."

Another cough. Carl gets up, grabs my sleeve, and pulls me off the bed into the hallway. "Boys?" "Yep!" "We're headed out. Four hours, Oliver, then we go!" "Okay!" Rick and Michonne go. I turn to Carl and ask, "What are you doing, man?"

I'm pulled into the bathroom.

"You're wheezing," Carl says, rooting through the mirror-cupboard. "We got... spares, somewhere."

"Oh..." He supplies me with three boxed inhalers. Green. Brown. Blue. A spacer, too. "Whoa, you've got the green! I thought I'd ran out."

"No," Carl answers. "Wait—how long've you not been using it?"

"Week?"

"Why the hell didn't you tell anybody?!"

"I didn't tell _you_. I told the others. Why would I tell you? I didn't know you keep spares."

"Of course we do!"

I pull a face. "We're fighting because you did something nice for me..." He doesn't reply. I take my inhalers. He seems to calm down so I smile. "Thanks, man."

He just nods.

"Oh. Carol's cookies," I say, attempting to lighten the mood. "They're pink, like the soap only they taste awesome."

He smirks, like he didn't mean to. I tilt my head towards the door and he relents his moodiness and goes to get Judith. While he goes, I'm in his bedroom putting the CD in. The music starts. I turn it up and bob my head to it, heading downstairs. Carl sets Judith on the rug in the living room. When I jump down the last two steps, I slide across the floor to stop directly in front of him as he comes out to find me. He startles, and I'm pulling a big, dramatic, _SMOOTH_ face. I grab his hat and put it on my head, laughing at the way part of his fringe flips up, and he's grinning, like he's trying not to, and then he can't even help it because I start to serenade him...

" _Why do you build me up  
–build me up–  
Buttercup baby, just to let me down  
–let me down–  
And mess me around..._"

I grab him and dance across the hallway. He stumbles after me, laughing while I twirl under his hand.

" _And then worst of all  
–worst of all–  
You never call, baby, when you say you will  
–say you will–  
But our love is real..."_

"Oliver!"

 _"I need you!  
–I need you–  
More than anyone, darlin'_  
 _You know that I have from the sta-art..._ "

He twirls under my hand, twirl and twirl and twirl. I keep singing, pulling him close, chests bumping, knees knocking, only letting go to put his hat back on his head. His arms come up around my shoulders and he gasps into my collar as I swing us both in a big, messy circle.

" _So build me up  
–build me up–  
Buttercup, don't break my hea-art..._"

"Whoa," Carl says, just as I let go to open the cookie-box at the counter.

"Huh?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Nothing, I mean, they really are pink."

"Here."

"Break it in half."

I snap the cookie in two and hand him the bigger half. I wait for him to almost finish when I ask, "Know _why_ they're pink?"

"No..." He stuffs the last chunk into his mouth. "Wh _hy_?"

"Beetroot."

He stops, mouth full. He swallows. "But... they're good."

I laugh.

"Even Enid said she likes them," I say, "and Enid doesn't like almost anything. Oh, I gotta head over to hers soon. I'm cutting her hair..." His grin is gone. "What?"

"Nothing."

I watch him. "Everything okay, man?"

He sighs. "Why do you keep asking me that?"

"I don't know. You just seem—"

"Seem _what_?"

"I don't know..." _tense... upset... like you're being too stubborn to tell me why._

"You should go," he says. "I gotta change my bandage. I fell asleep wearing it. It... got wet."

"I can wait down here."

"Nah."

"But, what about the music, and the acorns? I mean, they're _roasted..._ "

"Grow _up,_ Oliver!" he yells. "Would you jus' _quit_ it with your music and your _stupid_ acorns!? God damn it, grow up! Grow up!"

It occurs to me that sarcasm won't be a good strategy, but I still retort with it anyway: "Didn't get the memo that growing up meant letting the last parts of my soul shrivel up, but cool, whatever you say, man."

"Oh, what _ever_!" He marches into the living room. "Go cut your girlfriend's hair. I don't care."

" _What_?!" I stand there, mouth open, then I'm following him across the house. What the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

He faces me, pointing a finger. "What the hell is wrong with _you_ , Oliver?"

"What... _What_ are you talking about? What did I do wrong!?"

"You said!" he shouts. "You _said_ you weren't like that to each other!"

"We're... _No._ No, you do _not_ get to do this to me, not after everything. Not because of _this._ It's none of your _business_ , Carl. _God,_ what does it even _matter_ to you?!"

Judith starts crying.

"I thought... I—I..." It startles me when I see that he's crying. He's so angry he doesn't even notice for a second. He falters, realising, grimacing and shaking his head. "Whatever. You're right. It _doesn't_ matter."

"Wait..." I'm so overwhelmed I laugh. "You're... _jealous?_ "

He shoves me so violently that I hit the floor, pain stinging up my wrist.

"I'm _sick,_ Oliver!"

Judith screams.

"I'm sick of seeing your face!" Carl shouts over her. "I'm sick of _remembering_ your face! Remembering it like there isn't ever any one moment I just _do_ and I just know that I know and I'm sick of it!"

I'm lost.

"W... What?"

"I'm sick of how you are around me." He's rambling now. "And you're just quiet and giving me bigger halves and you're always just _annoying_ and you dance with me and you hold onto me when I can't tell when you're sleeping and you mess with me and... and you're _here,_ all the time. Real. _You._ I'm sick of it. I'm sick of _you_ _!_ "

Lost, I try to say I'm sorry, that I didn't mean to hurt anybody, but the words die in my throat.

"Just leave... please?"

"Carl—"

" _Go!_ "

* * *

A little while later, I'm at Enid's, cutting her hair in the dining room with a pair of kitchen scissors. Bean sits on the couch, watching us or the window.

"What happened to your hand?"

"Fine. Hold still."

"You keep... tossing it."

"I'm good."

I comb a section of her hair flat down her back, then hand the comb to her in exchange for the kitchen scissors she'd been holding for me, and finally, I cut the small section of her hair through. Even though I'm half way finished, a small flutter of awe still courses through my chest while I watch ten inches of Enid's hair fall to the floor at my feet.

I let out a breath.

Enid too.

"Did you do it to yourself?" she asks. "Bruise?"

I frown calmly. "I've decided I don't do that anymore."

"I don't think self-harm works that way."

"Don't call it that."

"Why?"

My chest swells in frustration, like some uncomfortable mix of grief and embarrassment. I tried to keep it secret for so long. But people found out and then. Alexandria's a small community. News travels fast, like the outbreak, only it was _me_ infecting everybody. Noah started sleeping in my room. Rick started kissing my head and squeezing my shoulders. Aaron and Eric started inviting me over for spaghetti, and Daryl asked me to hand him the Morley cigarettes. People kept looking at me like I was an alien, like I'd blow my brains out if I sneezed. I got why. I did. It's just, most of them talk about how stressful it is for _them,_ how much _they_ worry, but there's no talk about how much pressure that puts on me. With every bruise I'm not only hurting myself but them, _I know_. But it's hard to stop, to get better. Nobody talks about how hard.

Gently, I hold Enid's head still so she doesn't glance around at me.

"How'd it happen?"

"Carl," I whisper. "Got mad. Pushed me."

Just then, Olivia comes through with her list and asks me what weapons I'll be taking. I say, "Glock, knife, and my machete, please."

"The one with the red handle?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Olivia leaves, giving Enid a look as she does. Enid tells me Olivia thinks boys my age _'are only after one thing and will get you pregnant if you so much as use their toothbrush.'_ Enid says, "It's a good thing I have my own toothbrush." I don't say anything because I don't have any opinions about pregnancy and toothbrushes, especially not in any kind of combined subject. I keep cutting away at her hair and hoping it'll look better once she styles it.

 _Feathering,_ that's what Carol said once. _Feathering and—_

"Ouch!"

I startle, dropping the scissors with a _clatter!_.

"My ear!" Enid gasps, clutching it.

"I'm sorry!"

"Gosh, believe it or not I'd like to keep both of them, Oliver."

"Oh God, you're bleeding... like a lot." I run to the kitchen and grab a flannel from the drawer. Bean chases me. I come back, practically throwing the rag at her. "I'm sorry I'm sorry _ItoldyouIcan'tdothis_!"

"It's fine."

"It's on your hands."

"It's _fine._ Just finish it, you know, _without_ turning me into Van Gough's gender-swapped doppelgänger."

I sigh.

"I'm finished anyway." I hold the towel to her ear while she puts her hair up in a high ponytail. She thanks me. I apologise again and sit next to her chair on the floor, petting Bean.

"So," she says, "what happened, with you and him?"

"He... I don't even know. He just... got mad at me."

"Why?"

I hesitate. "He followed me, last night."

She's quiet. Me too thinking about what happened, how lonely I felt and how quickly I went to her—"Don't say you like me," she'd said to me, because I had when we'd gotten inside. I blurted it in the middle of our conversation: _"I think I like you..."_ "Don't tell me you do when you know you don't," she went on. "Not like that. You don't work that way."

"I'm not gay."

"I know. What I mean is, you aren't like most people. Tell me how many people you've loved—not just in a family way, like _love_ loved."

I frowned at her.

I said, "One."

"See?" She began talking with her hands, like Ron. I wondered if she'd loved him, but I didn't ask. I could guess. After Enid found out about him she spent a lot of time on her own, even away from me. "I have this theory that you're designed to only cope with loving one person at a time."

She sighed. "And, one day, you might move on or learn to love somebody else, but right now you just don't work any other way. It's just how you are— _who_ you are."

I glared at my knees, feeling small and childish, all cold and soggy from the rain. Then there was this comfortable pause. I bumped her shoulder. "Thanks..." I meant it. I thought she'd say _you're welcome_ or just bump my shoulder back, but she didn't.

"You can kiss me," she said, "if you want to."

I looked up to her and blinked. "What?"

She shrugged.

"Why?" I asked.

" _Because_... It—It's easier like that, sometimes, when you can just do something without it hurting, without it leaving a mark."

I looked down at my arms, thought about my chest and stomach; hurting and marked all over.

"You don't have to," she said, "duh. It was just an idea. Stupid. Just thought—"

"I want to," I said.

"Okay," she said. "Cool." I was going to say it back but instead I kissed her. It wasn't some ground-breaking experience, like I'd been expecting. There were no flare embers shooting out from us, or us sharing some long passionate kiss while the big red curtains rolled across the stage to finalise the performance. It just happened, quickly and quietly. Enid almost missed it.

I pulled back to check her face and she busted up laughing.

"Err..."

"Little fast," she tutored.

"Sorry."

"It's cool."

"Can I try again?"

"Yeah."

We laughed. I told her that I didn't know what I should do with my hand. She put it on her hip. I kissed her again and we were still laughing—"Knock it off." "Okay, okay." And then we weren't laughing because we were just kissing. My brain didn't slow time. Her skin didn't grow goosebumps—nothing like that. But it was good. All this time I thought I knew everything about kissing: stolen kisses, first kisses, sad kisses, passionate kisses... even _congratulatory endowment_ kisses. It didn't occur to me until then that Enid and I could make an entirely new kind of kissing. We were just kissing. Kissing like Enid and I kiss. Kissing like we were not two kids in love, not even in like. I was sad, like I am these days—without warning. I was thinking of Carl and his kisses, always one ground-breaking experience after the other.

We pulled away. I touched my mouth and felt my breath shake through my fingertips. That sadness grew, like some dark cloud I was still growing to live with. When I started to cry, Enid hugged me and said it was alright. She said that I understood now, and I did, so she took my hand and we went upstairs. I changed into the pyjamas she gave me. I stretched out on my back along her bed, and very carefully, Enid sat on my stomach, and very quietly, she asked me if I wanted her. I shook my head. I apologised, but Enid shook her head too. She smiled. She said she didn't want me either. So I asked her if she wanted to kiss me again, and she nodded, so I told her I wanted to kiss her again, too.

I touched her knee. She felt cold there, but the rest of her felt warm around my hips and stomach. Her pyjama top was one of those too-big men's polos, long enough she wore it like a night gown. Her socks were long and thick and off-white.

"I don't love you," she told me.

"Okay," I whispered. "I don't love you either. Not like that."

Her hair fell over her shoulder. It tickled my collarbones. I swallowed. The first kiss only lasted a second. It was soft and neat and when she pulled away she didn't pull away fully. We were nose to nose. Our chests moved steady against each other. I touched her hand, the same way I had in Nowhere that day, only this time I was thinking of her lips and not feeling guilty about it.

Our eyelashes brushed.

"Cool..." She smiled. "You're not afraid of me anymore."

I kissed her, simple and easy and uncomplicated. We kissed for a while—I'm not sure how long exactly, but I got sleepy after long enough. The kissing slowed to nothing at all and we curled up together under the blankets, face-to-face. We didn't say anything at all. We just listened to the rain outside. The rain and the insects and the air and the fall night, until we drifted into sleep.

"Enid?" I ask. "I... I'm sorry, if I made anything weird."

"You didn't," she replies, holding the flannel to her ear.

I sigh. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah?"

"Who have you loved?"

She's staring ahead of her. "I don't know."

I give her a minute.

"You know how Nell was really into quoting?" she asks finally. It's rare Enid talks about her. It's rare either of us do. "There's this one I keep thinking about, reminds me of you. Goes something like: _Unreturned love is like trying to make a sandwich with one slice of bread. Don't stress, just fold it in half and love yourself._ "

I just smile politely.

"Do you?" she asks me.

"Do I what?"

"Love yourself."

"Do _you_?"

She sighs steeply.

"I got another quote," she says then. "Something Gabriel marked in a bible I picked up in the church."

I want to roll my eyes, but I stop myself.

"Goes something like: _Let us not grow weary of doing good. Because, soon, we'll reap if we don't give up._ "

It's familiar. "By... Gelatine."

Enid bursts out laughing. "It's Galatians, Oliver..."

"It was a long time ago."

"Gelatine!" she says, almost crying. I get this strange accomplished feeling like I'm glad I made her laugh. "Still," goes on. "Just do good, I guess. Maybe one day soon it'll be worth it." She pulls the flannel away from her ear. Dried blood pulls at her skin and she hisses through her teeth.

"How is it?" I ask.

"Can you look?"

I squint, this dumb stab of guilt in my chest. "I think it's okay. Stopped bleeding."

"Is it deep?"

"Can I touch it?"

"It hurts real bad, can't you just look at it?"

"I can't tell how deep it is unless I touch it."

"What, why—are you blind?"

" _No..._ Here, put it in the light."

She walks to the window.

"Well, you still have two ears," I comment, "just."

"That's a relief." She looks herself in the hallway mirror. "It'll leave a scar—you only nicked it."

"I was trying to do your fringe," I explain, sweeping up the cut hair now and trashing it. "I thought it was part of your hair."

"Wait... are you blind?"

I roll my eyes and walk away.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

I turn to her. She's holding her arm up.

"Enid, I'm not blind."

"How many?"

"Three."

"Okay..." She steps away until she's on the very opposite end of the room. "How many now?"

"Two."

"No... I'm still holding up three." I blink. I watch her walk towards me, and slowly but surely two fingers turn into three right before me. "Oliver, you're _blind._ "

"No," I say. "No, I can see fine."

" _That's_ why you get headaches. That's why you squint in class, and why you can't tell walkers from people out in the forest! Holy shit."

"No," I say again. "My eyes are fine. I got tested."

"Yeah, three years ago. How old was your brother when he started wearing glasses?"

"I dunno, like, fourteen."

She's staring at me.

"Fourteen..." I say again. "Oh, f—"

"Yeah..."

"Oh no."

"What?"

"Your hair probably looks _awful_."

"Come on." She pulls me by the sleeve to the door. "Bean, let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"Where do you think?" Enid asks. "We're finding Denise."

"What," I pull her to stop, "no!"

"Come on."

"Enid, no, you can't!"

"Why?"

I'm panicking. Carl was right. Something always comes up.

"If you tell anybody they won't let me go today."

"Well maybe you shouldn't if you're freaking _blind._ "

"I'm not! I'm not... I can see."

"Not enough," she says. "You're just used to seeing _almost_ enough."

"I've gotten by."

"Oliver."

"Just _leave it._ Please? I... I have to do this."

She's staring.

"It's my mom and dad," I say. "Enid, please? It's... It's my mom and dad."

She sighs. Her shoulders drop. She nods.

"Okay."

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Build Me Up Buttercup_ by The Foundations; thanks, **_AwkwardlyMeOli._** The quote Enid recited about self-love and sandwiches was by Jarod Kintz. And a mishap with my mum inspired the hair cutting mishap -_-

Idk about anybody else but seeing the word "nipple" in this fic for the first time completely screwed me up laughing my ass off. Also I think that Oliver and Enid are very sweet together, platonically and romantically, but yeah, it's not serious, at all, it's just something that they do a little. I also kind of love that Oliver's developed a small crush on Denise.

Happy reading.


	16. Not Tomorrow Yet, Part 3: Heads

**The Sorrowful Deity** Yup. He's pissed. And yes! I hugged a tree.

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** I've said this before and I'll say it again. Your love for that boy astounds me. Enid is adorable. Agh, I hope you don't _hate_ Oliver, at least... :S ^.^

 **Biter two** Oooh, I've added layers! Yay. While reading that I kept hearing Shrek's voice though... Oh dear. " _Layers! An onion has layers!_ " That's settled it. Enid is an onion. Not a pixie. Just an onion. A pretty, complicated, layered onion - sorry, I don't know what happened here. And aw! Pretty name! And yes, me, too. When I write her and Oliver in a few chapters time I just pouted the whole way through. And the image of her teaching him _Rondo alla Turca_ on piano will forever make me smile. I love that song. And super thank you. Even now, I still grin so much reading comments like that.

 **Hongo En** Haha. It's funny having so many perspectives. Some are like "Noo Oliver baadddd!" and others are like, "Yaaaaaas boy you gooo get tha girrrllll!" hahaha it makes writing it very satisfying so thank you infinitely x Don't tell, but the first time I wrote it they did. . . very cosy, but Oliver didn't agree with me so it didn't happen. Even though I'm the writer I have no control over that boy, apparently, urgh. Yeah, it's kind of a sticky situation with his eyes atm. I feel like it's probably symbolic somewhere, too. Idk I'm too lazy to word it rn but something about him spending all this time losing sight of something and not noticing until it's too late but idk maybe that's spoilery or nooo? Idk I'll just leave that there. Then again, his whole family had shitty eyes. Pat, his dad (he had contacts and I never said so but let's pretend it was intentional) and his Nonno was blind, so it only fits that Oliver's eyes clock out some time soon, too. Oliver appreciates your concern xD I swear to God I had that song on at work for the whole three hours! It's so good!

 **AGGXX5** xD it is! Especially this first scene bit you'll read in a bit. They're so ridiculously awkward together xD The tension is real!

 **Blood on my Machete** Out of curiosity, what would have been an immature way to handle it? Just so I know for the future x And yes, wow, you worded that beautifully. That's exactly how they are together. But they just don't fit as a couple, even when they try! Wait, did your mojo ever leave you? You're so supplied with mojo that I have to take breaks to comprehend it all! It's brilliant! Yes, well, even _two_ cherries doesn't permit chapters longer than 7,000 words so maybe not yet but soon -scratch that- _one day soon_ he will go home! Swear it on my dog's grave!

 **yozza** I actually haven't thought about this. A prosthetic hand... hmm? It would be a cool characters development level up sort of thing. Like, with the stump now, as it is, it makes him so vulnerable, so maybe getting that might help him get that small part of himself back? Idk. I'll have to see what happens. But thanks! If I do, I'll give you credit!

 **Natsumo Fujoshit you** Me too! _Why do you build me up -build me up- buttercup baby!_ Ahh, now it's in your head again! I do not recommend putting plants or sticks in your mouth.

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** Hello! And thank you. I'm glad you're enjoying it! Oh, lots of stuff? I'll message you, okay? Though, if I haven't by the time you read this then I apologise because I've forgotten. But I shouldn't have... see ya in the PMs!

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 **BEEP!  
BEEP!  
BEEP!  
BEEP!**

Our three vehicles park along a side road. Trees one side and a dead cornfield on the other.

"Aaron, Rosita. You start here," Rick yells, climbing out of the RV. "Peel off every corner mile. Get back here in a couple hours. See what we got."

The Saviors' leader, Negan, want Gregory's head in exchange for peace, so that's exactly what we're going to give them. Only not in the way they think. Our first task is finding a head that looks like Gregory...

Grey hair.

Sixties.

Caucasian.

Preferably bearded.

I accompany Carol to the edge of the tree-line; the area ahead wooded and green. Most of the trees in these parts are the types of trees that keep their leaves in the fall and winter. Hills roll in the background, blurred green and orange and yellow, with Alexandria hidden just behind them. Everybody came to say goodbye before we left, and despite what Carl told me seven months ago I still can't not say goodbye. Maybe not in those words, but rather _see you later_ or _bring back pudding_ or just _stay safe_ , but the goodbye gets done all the same.

"Carol's a strong lady," Tobin told me at one point before leaving. "She'll be fine. Y'all will." I could tell it was more for his own sake than mine, and that, furthermore, he was under the impression that just because he and Carol may or may not have slept together last night it now meant he had to put some kind of meagre effort into bonding with me.

I walked away, definitely not up to playing along the whole step-ish-kind-of-adopted-father-sort-of-ish thing at all, only my stomach dropped when I ended up walking right into Carl as he was leaving. He hadn't talked to me. Not since our argument. But given the circumstance and the fact that he does still care about me and the others at least a little bit, he nodded and said, "Be careful out there, man," to me. I probably should have hugged him – I knew I should have at the time, and I was going to. I was going to squeeze his shoulders and say, "Thanks, man," all smoothly and coolly. But I am rarely smooth, or cool, so I blanked on what to do and held up two fingers in peace, stuttering the mash up, "Manksan," at him.

Thinking about it now makes me palm myself in the face.

"Come on," Carol says, squinting at the trees, "the horns'll have drawn any stragglers. Let's get started."

"Can I pee real quick?"

She squints at me. "Why?"

"Uh. I have a bladder."

"No, why are you talking into your hand?"

"Oh, nothing. Sorry." I gesture behind me again. "So, can I?"

Carol nods. "I'll keep look-out. Not too far."

I go, taking refuge by an old run-down car a few yards away. I turn my back to everybody but unfortunately this is the only privacy I can allow myself, though I shouldn't complain, getting my junk bitten off by a lurker doesn't sound like the next thing I'd like to lose anyway. I shiver –either at the thought or just from that weird pee-shiver thing, I don't know. Doesn't matter. Pee sounds weird when you compare the noise it makes when it hits car-metal versus grass. This also doesn't matter, but I still amuse myself with it while I can:

Patter. Patter. Patter. Putter. Pu - Ping. Ping. Pung. Pung. Pung.

"I almost told everyone at the meeting," I hear Rosita a little way behind me talking to Carol. Rosita sounds mad. She's been mad all morning. Earlier I'd noticed that her and Abraham hadn't even so much as looked at each other, which is odd. Usually their fluff is so sweet it's sickening.

 _Maybe they got in a fight.  
 **Maybe they broke up.  
** Maybe they're going through a rough patch._

"We're not telling them," Carol answers, and even though I'm done peeing I procrastinate so that I can eves-drop. Usually it takes me a little longer to zip and button up with one hand anyway.

"Morgan stood up in that church and tried to talk us out of this," Rosita retorts.

"What's wrong with that?" Carol asks.

" _Maybe_ because he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about," Rosita hisses. "That he should take the _win_ that we didn't kick his ass out for hiding that psychopath."

" _Shhh_!" I make myself look busy. Carol buys it: "He'll hear you."

"I can't believe you haven't told him," Rosita reprimands her quietly. "I can't believe you haven't told anyone."

"Oliver's got enough on his plate right now."

"Carol, we've had seven months here, and you've just been..."

"If we told everyone, they'd find out about Denise," Carol talks over her, "you know that."

"That _hijo de puta,_ " Rosita argues quietly, "tried to stand there and act like we didn't know what we were–"

"He doesn't want to kill."

" _We_ don't want to kill," Rosita shoots back. "We don't like it. It happens."

I'm spending too much time stood here with my junk out and Glenn asks me if I've got something wrong down there as he, Noah and Heath pass by. I shake my head, zip up quickly, blush. Rosita is walking away, muttering, "I'm not telling anyone," under her breath that I pretend not to hear. I should tell her; Carol. I should tell her that Noah already told me everything because Noah can't keep secrets from me because he still believes he owes me his life. I should tell her that I won't tell anybody, not if she doesn't want me to. I should tell her that I wish I was there to help her, and that she did the right thing and that so did Morgan, too, and that it was the circumstance that made it all so terrible and not her. Because she did nothing wrong. Because maybe there is no right and wrong and maybe it's only about what you can live with. But Carol's got a cigarette, and I watch her light it, and for a moment after her drag she glares at it, then throws it to the floor. When she notices me watching her she tells me to hurry up.

* * *

 _Who wants to know?_

 _All that is gold is rusting  
No-one will know  
When seasons cease to change and:  
How far we've gone  
How far we're going  
It's the here and the now  
And the love for the sound  
Of the moments that keep us moving_

 _Soldier on, soldier on  
Keep your heart close to the ground_

 _Don't think about it all  
Just keep your head low  
Don't think about it  
At all..._

I'm stalking. Like a lion hunting zebra.

 ** _You think about zebra too much.  
_** _Maybe._

Only this time, I'm the predator, not the prey.

I pounce, and Lizzie's knife is lodged through the walker's throat. Blood spurts across my front. I jerk my hand to the side, then up, and then push right through the brain stem, and the walker hits the floor at my feet, dead. Carol and Michonne are quick with the second and third walker, an old lady and a young girl with skin and hair so grey and rotten I can't tell what their original colour was.

All three of us hunch over the walker I'd taken out. Old, grey, bearded, Caucasian. I tilt my head, wondering, _How close does it look?_ Carol shrugs like she can hear me, says, "Matches the description alright."

"He looks like that actor. The one who did the... scissor hands movie." Michonne holds out two fingers and snaps them together a few times. We both look at her like she'd just pulled an ostrich out of her katana sheath. "What – it _does_." Michonne shrugs indifferently. In truth, looking like she hadn't meant to even say it aloud. "Kinda."

"It's the best we've come across so far," Carol grumbles.

There's a pause. Blood dribbles from the hole in the possible-Gregory-lookalike's throat.

"You want me to do it, or you?" Michonne asks me.

"No," I shake my head, sheathing Lizzie's knife to pull my machete from my other hip, and I line it up to the place I need to drive for effective decapitation, glancing briefly at her. "Thanks though."

And then...

 _Shluck!_

Michonne carries the head back, and for a few minutes I clean up in the RV a little, wiping the blood off my face and as much of it off of my sweater as I can, but I end up just pulling it off anyway, grabbing my hoodie and pulling that on instead. I know it shouldn't matter but for some reason I want to go home presentable, if that makes sense. Like, maybe I won't fit there if I've got blood all over me. Like maybe the walls and doors and furniture won't recognise me... maybe _they_ won't.

 ** _Dude. They're dead._**

The others brought back two more heads to choose from. When I step outside and sit on the step of the RV, I glance at Carol ahead of me, stood to the side, listening to Rick's instructions to everybody. She looks focussed and determined and serious, holding up all her walls. They're tall and impenetrable. Abraham and Gabriel are lugging a decapitated corpse into the tree-line, and Rosita is returning from trimming the walker's beards, wiping her hands on her over-sized shirt.

Jesus and Andy are away in front of the RV discussing over the walker heads. It also wasn't until last night, talking to Enid, that I found out Jesus' real name is Paul Rovia. The name Jesus still seems to stick better though.

"We're gonna take a look around," Rick says to everybody. "Try to get a feel for how many people are in there. If we like how it looks, we go in. A couple of hours before dawn."

I glance up at Carol, thinking about the more and more limited time we'll have in Lorton, and she notices but doesn't look over her shoulder to me, instead she just nods the littlest bit, meaning: _Priorities, Oliver. Be patient. Tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll go._

"The guards outside'll be tired," Rick goes on. "Everyone inside'll be sleeping. We don't like what we see, we head back, make a new plan. They don't know who we are. We'll keep Jesus in the shadows... This is how we eat. This is how we eat."

Everyone is watching him, agreeing without having to say so, and a small part of me thinks of Gareth that night on the other side of the office door...

 _"You don't know what it is to be hungry..."_

"We roll out at midnight." I watch Rick go, expecting him to walk past to check in with the heads, but he stops in front of me. "Y'alright, Oliver?"

"Yessir."

"Need any more?" he asks, gesturing to my Glock. I shake my head, showing him the full magazine. He shakes his head and groans approvingly, then slaps my shoulder. "G'boy."

I mumble, "Yessir," again as he makes to leave, only Carol catches him.

"Why is Maggie here?"

"She's guarding the perimeter," Rick answers. "Her and Oliver."

"Yeah, but why is she _here_?"

"'Cause it's her choice."

"I wanna stay out there with them," Carol says.

"This whole thing's a race to the armoury," Rick explains. "We need as many people inside as we can get."

"They shouldn't be out there alone. They shouldn't be out here in the _first_ place."

"They aren't alone."

"She's pregnant and Oliver's sixteen years old with one hand."

" _You_ decided to bring him out here with us," Rick points out, only just stopping himself short from yelling. It only just occurs to me that he doesn't want me here at all, that he's worried, that it probably took a lot more than just 'a talk' with him like Carol said. He looks tense and worried but he pushes it away when he notices me squinting at them. I can't see their expressions very well, but I know Carol is frustrated. She starts doing that thing with her lips; pursing them like she's panting only without the sharp breaths...

 ** _What is she suddenly so afraid of?  
Why now?  
_** _What's going on in there, Carol?_

"Okay," Rick relents, shaking his head incredulously.

"Good."

When he leaves around front to pick a head, I'm still staring at her. For a moment she looks like she's trying to look back at me, but she doesn't – _can't_. She just walks away and quickly tells me to make sure I have everything.

"Yes, ma'am," I answer slowly and indifferently, collecting my things. I can hear Jesus, Andy and Rick talking around front. Apparently Gregory's nose is a different shape to the walker that looked most like him. Then I flinch, because suddenly I'm hearing fist connecting to bone, brutally, and it only takes me a second to realise that I'm actually just listening to Rick punch the walker in the face to break its nose... several times.

"He fought back," Rick says cleverly. "He broke your hand, right?" Michonne told me what happened. That in actual fact _Daryl_ broke Andy's hand – his whole arm, rather, when the whole mess with Gregory's failed assassination went down.

"Guess there's no reason to be subtle about it," Jesus says.

A pause.

"What?" Rick asks flatly, and I can imagine Andy's face arched in horror.

"The Saviors," he explains, "they're scary, but, those pricks got nothin' on you."

 ** _Andy, you have no idea._**

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

"Come on, Judy, stop crying."

She doesn't. I don't think she has since this morning.

"Shit," I mutter, cooing to her. I check her diaper but it's dry, so I face her, stare at her wide eyed. "Supper? That what you want?"

She whimpers miserably.

"Fine."

To be honest, I've been avoiding this. Food is in the pantry. I've been avoiding the pantry all day. Haven't eaten yet other than the cookie half, and because of that neither has Judith, and I know that that makes me a terrible big brother so I'm going to do something about it.

Enid, and there abundance of _whatever_ she does involving Oliver, isn't a good enough reason to starve.

Even so, I time it so that she's not in the house while I go. I watch her leave from the other side of the lake. She leaves the garage open. Judith is quiet enough for her not to notice us in the gazebo. She's probably gone to school. I go quickly, pushing Bean away once I'm inside when he jumps up for Judith and tallying off what I take on the boards:

Mushy peas – _1 JAR  
_ Lentils – _1 JAR  
_ Brown Bread – _¼ LOAF  
_ Strawberries – _3_

I leave, only I don't because I walk right into her. "Oof!"

"Carl."

"Shit."

"Nene," Judith says.

"Enid," I translate.

"Hi?"

"Hey."

"..."

"Get what you need?"

"Yep."

"Did you tally it off?"

"Yep."

"Cool."

I'm acting like it's _her_ loitering around, frowning and rolling my eyes like _she's_ a bug rather than a pixie like he says sometimes, but it's me. _I'm_ hovering by the door, buzzing loudly and obnoxiously, fully able to leave but not leaving anyway. Enid notices. She turns to me half way up the staircase and comes back down slowly.

I fidget.

Badly.

"Carl, th–"

"Can you just tell me what's going on with you two?" I blurt over her, all of a sudden. "I just, want to know, so..." _so I can stop feeling like this about it. About you two._ "I mean, it's fine, if you're, you know, dating now..." I choke, because _Oh, wow... no, no it's so not, why the hell did I say that? God, now I'm a pathological liar, aren't I?_ "I mean, I – I..." _Shit shit shit just stop sleeping with each other just stop stop stop it!_ "What, so, are you like boyfriend and girlfriend now?"

She looks a little overwhelmed. Not surprising since my sentences are coming from all over the place. I mean, she's hardly said a word yet and I've already gotten defensive.

"Hasn't he already talked to you about this?" she asks finally.

"Forget it," I retort, because as well as being defensive and a possible pathological liar I am also now impatient and melodramatic.

"Carl," she says, grabbing the door before I can open it. "Look, whatever the hell you're thinking up there, I'm –like– seventy-four percent sure it isn't as bad as you think it is."

I stare at her and bite back the _"Doesn't_ sound _very comforting"_.

She sighs like she heard it anyway. "Look, just, stay, a while. Hang out, okay?"

Judith is on my hip gripping the lentils and mushy peas, already chewing on her second strawberry and I know I won't get the last one at all unless I eat it now. When Enid beckons me into the kitchen, we spend a few minutes setting supper up together in quiet. I get to eat my strawberry. I also make hot coco, remembering what Oliver said about doing that for Enid to get on her good side and figuring I'll at least need the extra credit. It only just occurs to me that I _want_ to be on good terms with her. With both of them. That I actually _miss_ being their friend. That even though it's only been half a day I've been fully aware of the void in our friendship for a while now.

I remember after the first few months after waking up. Enid, Oliver and I hung out together almost every day. I would bring the comics and she would bring the food and he would sit and be quiet and kind to us; finding the spare bandage and handing over the pencil sharpener and using the words _man_ and _cool_ at the right moments when he'd feel brave enough to speak. But then feelings got in the way and he got good at blocking them out, and I didn't. He got kinder and quieter, and I got more bitter and cold. I acted like it was him who couldn't let go, when it wasn't him at all...

Enid and I eat and drink and make sure Judith uses the right end of the spoon.

"I'm sorry for what happened," I tell her the second before she speaks, "in the forest, with Deanna." I know I'm avoiding the elephant in the room, procrastinating worse than Oliver, but I'm rambling now and I'm not stopping at least until I've run out of breath. "Had to get her to the others – Spencer and Michonne – let him put his mom down–"

"Oliver told me." _Of course he did, probably while he was kissing you instead of kissing m–_ "About Deanna, all that."

A pause. I mix my hot coco for no reason other than to fill the quiet, to stop it from messing with my head with memories I can't quite tell from imagination or reality. I try to Memory Search but I'm in no head-space to; like trying to meditate in the middle of an earthquake. All I get is tiny snippets of courtyards and fences and the pain after something smacked me in the throat.

"I _would_ understand, by the way," she says then, breathing into her mug like its an inhaler. "We both would. I didn't just leave my parents to walk. I had to put them down. They were the first walkers I took care of because I hadn't had to do it before that, but after..." She drifts a moment, then shrugs Enidly. "After that it wasn't such a big deal anymore, and, even though Oliver hasn't put his parents down yet he's felt bad about it ever since." She shakes her head, grimaces. Her voice goes soft, like paper in water. "No. Bad isn't even the word. Bad's like calling getting stabbed in the chest a paper-cut..."

Again, she is gone, drifted away, and I glare at my mug and think about how much of an asshole I am, because I know I was wrong in the woods, telling them that. I knew it the moment I said it but my pride got in the way.

"Do you want me to tell you what happened last night?"

"No," I lie. Enid knows, because she watches me; her eyes big and focussed, her expression relaxed. Her hair is shorter, too, I notice (a little bitterly) tied in a neat braid over her shoulder to stop just under her collarbone. A part of her fringe held back behind her ear and the ends of her hair are cut jaggedly. I sigh. " _Yeah._ "

She sips from her cup and takes a bite of bread. It has butter on it, from Hilltop. Mine, too. I'd never really thought about how much I love butter. The theme tune of _Build Me Up Buttercup_ gets stuck in my head again and it makes my heart hurt. Stupid. Apparently stupid is a common side effect of being in love with someone who doesn't love you back anymore. When Enid starts talking she keeps her voice level and mature. She tells me that they kissed, that they aren't dating and don't want to either, and that he slept over and they kissed some more, and that that was it.

"I know it doesn't make sense, okay?" She sighs, because she doesn't need to explain anymore. I get it. I mean, no, I don't. But I get it enough. "He's my best friend. I wouldn't do anything to hurt him."

"He's my best friend, too," I say under my breath, then pick my voice up when I realise I sound like a child. "I mean, I just want us to be cool with each other. All of us. I hate how tense it always is between us. He talks to you like you're everything to him, and then, when he talks to me like that, too... I believe him."

"You _are_ everything to him."

"Yeah well you are, too," I murmur. Her face softens then. I hadn't noticed how tense it was before but in that moment rock seems to turn to pillow. My chest stings jealously.

"I think Oliver just has a lot of everythings at the moment," she replies softly.

I sigh and dip my head, drink more hot coco. "Right."

"It's not like he doesn't know that though," she explains. "I think, for the longest time he didn't have anything. When he lost his brother, the first time, it was just him, all alone, and now, I – I think he's learned that when he gets something he cares about he's gotta hold onto it, you know? And, right now we're all lucky enough to have a lot of everythings, too, it's just, unlike most he's smart enough to appreciate it."

My hand comes up to rub gently over my bandage. I can feel the hole behind it. It makes me feel ugly. But the kind of ugly that isn't just on the outside. "We drive each other crazy," I say, "and it's so stupid. I just, want it to be easy again – I mean, no, it never really was, and I can't remember everything before, but, I guess it still wasn't really all easy back then either, but... I don't know. It doesn't have to be _this._ I just, want us to... _be_."

She takes a deep breath and collects our empty plates. "He'll be back tomorrow," she says, her hip leant against the counter. She shrugs. "Tell him then."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

For a while I and a few more of us were sleeping again, resting for the parts of the evening and night that we could. But when it gets to three o'clock in the morning everybody is awake and preparing to go.

"I've never killed somebody," Noah says. He'd only just woken me up and I'm still yawning. Yawning so much I'm scared my jaw is dislocated. Only at his words my mouth snaps shut quickly. It's dark out, and all I can see by is the solar lamp he's put on the RV kitchen counter across from me.

I look at him. For a little while he doesn't say anything else so I take my inhalers. Brown and green and the allergy tablets, pocketing my blue –taking them a few hours early, according to Carol, is a good idea, as we're going to be up for the rest of the morning anyway. Noah's staring ahead of him at the landscape, sat on the steps of the RV. The sun will start rising soon. Right now all I can see is a faint orange glow coming through the black, and all the tree trunks cutting through it like some strange knitting pattern.

"Was talking to Glenn and Heath about it," he goes on finally, talking so soft and quiet he's more just groaning it. "They haven't had to either. Glenn said... Said he didn't know what it was gonna feel like but he said it's gonna be bad."

"It is," I tell him.

Noah squints when he turns to me. "Yeah?"

I nod, but only regard his face for a second. "It's the worst thing in the world."

"I'm scared," he says.

"Good," I tell him. "You gotta hold onto that. When you stop feeling scared of it – that's what's worse."

Again, he nods, and he's about to say something else but Heath steps into our view.

"Guys," he says, gesturing us to come with him. "It's time."

My heart drops right into my gut.

For a few minutes I say goodbye to them: Heath, Tara and Noah. Again, not in those words. But needing to all the same. They're going to leave right away from the compound when they're done in there, which means that Maggie, Carol and I will miss them. Which means that this will be the last time we saw them until they get back from their Run. I say, "Stay safe," into Tara's hoodie collar and she kisses the top of my head and tells me she will.

"See you, Oliver," Noah says to me, pulling me into his chest.

"Two weeks."

"Two weeks," Noah promises, squeezing once before quite suddenly kissing the side of my head, which in itself startles me. He pulls away and nods seriously, his brow knitted together and his mouth pursed into a thick line. The key chain Carl had made him dangles from the handle of his hunting knife. On the key chain, Carl had used a hot nail from Morgan's welding equipment to burn and carve the words:

 _'I don't know if I can make it.._ _.  
...Then you won't.'_

Only on the other side is another added quote:

 _'This is the beginning...  
...You are already making it.'_

"Nell told me that. Day she died. Hiding in that stupid pet store," he says, smiles. I grunt when he rubs his whole hand up over my head. "Look after yourself, brother."

And then they're all leaving to make the trade.

Abraham, Sasha, Daryl, Rick, Michonne, Rosita, Aaron, Noah, Heath and Glenn head to the compound. Which we've discovered is an old telecommunications facility. Disused now though. We'd seen the satellites around in odd places like fields and on the side of roads, and the actual compound has a large satellite right on top of it. It's kind of cool, really. Tara, Gabriel, Jesus and Andy are waiting in the other car on the south-side of the compound, they're going to get Andy to hand over the head in exchange for Craig, and then the other's ambush the guards in silence and then go in, kill the rest of them in their sleep. Carol, Maggie and I are on the east side. The road stretches past the north and west side so covering that end was too risky. Jesus said east and south are our best bet, that we can see the north and west alright if we each stay put.

I'm sat on the roof, keeping watch. Very, very carefully. Very, very aware of the new secret discovery that my vision isn't as good as it could be. It makes sense, I guess. Patrick wore glasses and my father wore contacts and _Nonno_ was blind as a bat. Shitty eyes run in my family.

 _Stupid genes. Wasn't the under-bite enough._

The sky is black. I know what stars look like, obviously, and if I squint I can make out their tiny dots through my eyelashes, and they make big distracting lines right across the sky, and it's always been like that as far as I'm aware but it isn't until now, really thinking about it, that I realise how different they look from the photos you see in books up close. Lack of light pollution, I want to blame, like maybe something to do with that could be part of why I'd gone so long without realising.

 _I wonder if I'm short or long sighted?  
 **What's the difference?  
** I don't know.  
 **Whatever, either way, this isn't very useful when you're keeping watch...**_

Every crack or rustle or breeze doesn't go unnoticed, but in the dark, and being so aware of my impairment now, it makes it harder. It makes my heart beat too fast, my palms sweat, my throat dry and my muscles tremble and tense, and I'm the biggest moron in the world because I still haven't told anybody.

I'm about to, to just admit it: _I can't see properly, okay?_ But—

"Oliver?" Carol says.

I glance down to her.

"Need a coat?"

I'm shivering, so I nod.

"Alright, come down, see which one fits."

I do, and I pick a spare. Aaron's, I think; a little too big, dark blue, brown inner hood, with big frayed snags at the hem. I think it's the same one he was wearing when we met him. But it's warm. Comfy. Maggie smiles at me, and then she's throwing up into the ditch. I hold some of her hair back with my arm and press my hand over hers on her stomach until she can stop, and Carol is watching us worriedly.

This happens sometimes.

Morning sickness.

Even though I know this I'm thinking about her miscarriage months ago. How she was only a few weeks into gestation and it was only a few cells. How she knew it was gone because there was blood when there shouldn't have been. How the baby wasn't a baby and it was gone after some medication and sanitary towels. But this? This baby _is_ a baby now, and we all know that we turn when–

 ** _Stop it._**

I think this every time Maggie rushes off to throw up in the toilet. Every time she puts a hand to her stomach and closes her eyes for a moment until the ache subsides. Denise says it's normal, that the baby's just growing in there, and so the thought will go away until next time. I know this is just another one of those times, and it is, because after a moment Maggie leans up and wipes her mouth and complains lovingly about the little Greene-Rhee messing around in her.

"You should sit down for a while," Carol tells her.

"No, I'm okay. You both sit. I'll take watch."

"Maggie," she says.

"Really," she says back, smiling honestly, so Carol takes a seat on the RV steps and rests her rifle across her knees.

"See?" I ask her quietly a moment later, taking a seat beside her one step down.

"See what?" she asks, a little annoyed.

I tip to the side and touch my chin to the butt of her rifle, then look up to her –the edge of my green beanie rubbing against my eyebrows. "Carrying a rifle like a purse," I whisper. She lets out a scoff that looks like a bad attempt to laugh.

"Sure, Oliver."

I smile at her goofily, and I'm sure she's about to smile at least a little back, but an alarm goes off. Out of nowhere, only not. It's coming from the compound. It startles us, and we all stand up and face it. It's so loud. _God,_ it's so loud. I remember this feeling. I felt it the day the Wolves came, when the truck horn went off. The noise so loud it shakes the whole world around us, like some big monster stood right in our faces, blowing us away with its roar. Carol is marching towards it, right into the teeth.

"They're in trouble. Stay here."

Maggie and I follow her across the ditch. The siren sounds again, repetitive, over and over, long and loud and bulldozing. Gunshots are starting to fire from inside. A lot of it.

"I'm goin' with you."

"I said stay here," Carol retorts at her.

"No."

"Damn it, Maggie!" It's only then that she notices me following, and she grabs my amp-arm hard, then dives for Maggie's arm, too. " _Don't_!"

"I have to," Maggie rasps.

"Carol," I try, my voice small and shrill and panicked.

"No, you don't," Carol says furiously, letting go of us. "You don't _have_ to."

"Yes, I do," Maggie argues.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Carol says then. Her voice is different. All of a sudden. It hollows, ruthless and deadly like the siren.

"What am I _supposed_ to do?" Maggie asks angrily.

"You're supposed to _be_ someone else!"

Maggie's brow arches, like she suddenly understands something. Because she does. We both do. Carol isn't protecting us just for us anymore. It's for her, too. Like if she can keep us safe she might be able to take a few more numbers off her list, like in doing so it might change things... change _her._

"They need our help," Maggie says.

My hand lifts, reaching out to Carol, but the moment my fingertips touch her palm there comes a gnarl from behind Maggie, and Carol has charged forward, slipping between my fingers, and then the walker is dead. Carol spins around to us. She looks ill. Sweaty and sunken and old. Rusting worse, all the edges of her weathered and crumbling away.

It scares me senseless.

"Carol," I beg, my own voice hollow, but not like hers...

"You. Are. Both. Staying. _Here_."

Something moves.

Maggie and I aren't as fast as Carol, because by the time we've swivelled around and pulled out our guns, already Carol has drawn, and already–

 ** _BANG!_**

–the man drops to the floor with a cry, clutching his arm. Maggie scampers for him.

"Dammit, Maggie, let's go!" Carol hisses, a firm hand on my wrist.

"Not until it's done," Maggie growls, and she's aiming right at his face. He glares up at her, panting frantically. Middle aged. Male. His skin is pale and his hair is short and greying, with shaven face and tattered clothes...

So, this is it, a _Savior._

Man but monster.

Mortal but unstoppable.

...apparently.

Then something else moves, just like before, only nobody is fast enough.

"STOP!"

Guns click.

It's three women.

Out of nowhere.

A gun at our temple for each of us.

"Or they're dead."

This whole time, I've been such an idiot. So afraid of tomorrow and its consequences. Well this, here, now, _is_ tomorrow... and here are it's consequences.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Soldier On_ by The Temper Trap, thanks dearpureblood, who actually made a playlist "Just Oliver" on 8tracks. And the pee sound was taken directly from the comic.

 **Preview: The Saviors are awful. Carol is a goddess. And Oliver's trying not to die a bunch.**

Hey, if you want, check out my other Fear the Walking Dead fic, Quinn. _Getting your head around the them/they/their pronouns is far easier than you might think, I swear..._

As always,  
Happy reading.


	17. The Same Boat, Part 1: Amen

**The Sorrowful Deity** Yup. It's a theme, huh? What happened last time? Oh, right, yeah, he lost an eye... oh and her name is Paula. She was epic, huh? One of the best villains on the show, I think.

 **Hongo En** ^.^ Thank youuu

 **Natsumo Fujoshit you** Never hate Enid she is AMAZING. Haha, I'm sorry I make you feel so complicated xD

 **DarthGranola** HAPPY TO

 **Rolochan** I love your reviews I love your reviews I love your reviews. I hope uni isn't kicking your butt too hard. He is so delicate with her (bar the part where is cut her eat oops). Ooh, his hair. Okay, right now it's basically just like the cover picture, but he just brushes it all back so that he doesn't usually have a fringe over his forehead unless he takes off his beanie and it flops forward all messily. But _very soon_ it will change drastically... Don't worry, the realisation will come. Though, in a sense he already has realised it. It's more just waiting for the moment that he admits it aloud. Gosh, it makes me so happy how much you see into this. And yes, he is very dense about relationships. And he still doesn't fully understand his and Enid's relationship yet, which you will see more of in the future. Especially when he starts really thinking about the consequences or it all on him and her, and Carl. Yes, oh man, Carol and Oliver are my favourite relationship to write about ever. Seriously. They fit so badly and so well at the same time. Yes, I honestly thing out of everybody she is the one who can help him the most, but as the series goes on it seems like she's also going to be the one who breaks him the worst, too... poor them. Well, to be honest, Carl does remember some things already. I've decided not to go too far into it because his memories are weird. Like I'd wrote. They come in the wrong order and some he isn't sure are real or not. I'd written that part in Oliver POV and so Carl obviously never told Oliver or anybody the stuff he remembered about him. I will try to go into it a little, but I like it being a blank-ish space. But then again imagining his face when he suddenly remembers that xD

 **RHatch89** Me too ^.^

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** Thank you x I'm so excited ^.^

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

There are a lot of things I didn't know before this moment. The first I will share right now; Maggie's jacket is desirable enough that three scary-as-hell kidnappers would rather take it off her before they shoot her.

The second; it is possible for an old woman to use up an entire cartridge of Ventolin purely out of spite: "An asthmatic, huh?" she'd asked me when she rooted through our things, and I didn't say anything so she said, "Me, too," and then she was breathing it all in greedily until the whole cartridge was empty. "Ain't that nice o' ya?" Her laugh was like a scratchy bicycle gear.

Third thing; my sentimentality over Lizzie's watch is strong enough that I'm willing to almost die to keep it on my person. She found it, the old lady, and she threw it to the ground, and I dove for it. Someone roared. Someone else screamed. And then a gunshot detonated a small part of earth beside my shoulder. When a body crashed against me my hand was pinned to the earth under a kneecap and my face was held deep into dirt. The barrel of a gun dug into the back of my head. It was hot. Scalding. There was another scream, I think, only I can't remember right. I think it was Carol, but I was growling and whimpering into dirt too much to tell.

When they stood me up, my mouth was full.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

My breath was hard and heavy.

"Huh? Freak?"

I kept my mouth shut.

"It's his watch," Carol gasped. "Please. Jus' – just let'm keep it."

"Shut up!"

"Spit it out!"

"What the bastard?"

"Let him have it," one of them said dismissively. "But if he wants to keep it he'll have to hold onto it."

There were too many breaths and not enough heartbeats to keep up with them all. Carol was staring at me – still is. Maggie, too, and I'm just the stupid one. The boy who almost just killed himself. The boy who doesn't even care.

The sun is up now, poking through the tree-line. I don't know how long it's been but the morning air is still colder than comfortable. Makes me shake. But then again a lot of things are making me do that right now.

Paula's voice is clear and low, accent articulate and local, like mine –her hair is sweaty and ginger and shoulder-length, and her skin is pale and gaunt. Fox-like.

She's got her gun at Carol.

'Chelle –who tackled me– looks a little like Maggie, with dark brown hair and light skin and a sharp jaw, only she looks to have more of a Spanish or Mexican ethnicity –I don't know, and quite frankly I don't think too much about it.

Her gun, too, has a target: Maggie's head.

Molly is short and stout and old, with long grey hair and a faded headband holding it back from her forehead. Her voice is more rhodic and croaky, and she coughs a lot, and has a wart on her cheek.

Her gun is aimed at me.

Maggie, Carol and I are hidden at the edge of the tree-line on the west side of the compound with Paula, Molly, Donnie –the man Carol shot– and 'Chelle. Paula is watching the compound through binoculars. We just watched Noah, Heath and Tara take off north-west for their Run, oblivious to what's happened. Because once they were gone, another Savior, Primo, drove out of the compound and tried to escape. I couldn't exactly see what was happening but from what Paula said our group stopped him, and they were going to kill him, but when Paula pulled out her walkie-talkie, they all stopped.

"Lower your gun, prick," she said. " _You,_ with the Colt Python." Rick. "All of you lower your weapons right now."

Donnie is bleeding and needs a doctor. Primo is as close as they've got, according to him.

I squint, trying to tell who is who but from this distance it's useless. Just tall dark figures. I wonder if Carol and Maggie are finding it too hard to see them properly, too, if it really is just a distance too far, but I'm fairly sure that my eyes are just that bad. Everyone here is looking at the compound and the fray of people stood on it like they can see them. But even when I squint harder all I see is fuzzy stick-men. I wonder what good sight must be like, and how on earth I've gotten so normalised to poor sight.

 ** _How have you gotten by?  
God dammit, there's a fucking clump of dirt in your mouth, for crying out loud!  
Why are you still here?  
Why are you still trying?_**

 _"Come on out."_ Rick's voice breaks up by the shake of his finger against the speaker, and I shudder hearing him, missing his voice like I miss my mom's smile, all of a sudden. _"Let's talk."_

"How many've we got?" Molly asks.

"Eight," Paula answers her, finger off the speaker. "In sight."

 _Eight. That means everybody made it, right? Michonne, Rick, Daryl, Glenn, Gabriel, Abe, Sash, Rosita?  
 **You don't know if Jesus, Andy or Craig left yet though. You can't just assume, asshole. You can't tell anything with just your shitty eyes and a dumb number.**_

When I try to move my tongue I gag. Too much dirt. Too much watch.

"No, kid," Molly tells me, smiling like a grimace or snarl. "Lady says you gotta hold it."

Even though I ignore her, she snickers dryly.

"Not too many, we can take'em – we took more," Donnie says, and Paula regards him dismissively – he called her _'babe'_ before so I'm fairly sure they're dating. Regardless, she doesn't reply, instead turns back to her binoculars.

Her lips purse in concentration.

"We're not coming out but we will talk," Paula explains into the talkie. Carol is closing her eyes. I'm focussing on breathing and not swallowing. Maggie is analysing this like she's looking at development plans, like she's going to find a way to make this work –but also like this development might be too much, too.

I stop looking at her.

"Names," Paula commands us suddenly. " _Names_!"

Carol's eyes avert to the floor and her feet shift nervously, and I know what she's doing. She's playing possum again. It only occurs to me then that she's mimicking my authenticity, and I become aware of how pathetic we must look. How pathetic I really _am_.

"I'm Maggie, this is Carol. Oliver."

"We've got a _Carol,_ an _Oliver,_ and a _Maggie,_ " Paula tells the talkie. "I'm thinking that's something you wanna _chat_ about."

Even from here, I can see the panic wash over every one of them out there, turning their blurry figures rigid and tense and shifty.

"Now we're gonna work this out right now," Paula goes on. "And it's going to go our way."

The dark figures in the distance move and swirl around some.

The talkie crackles...

 _"We have one'a yours,"_ Rick answers. _"We'll trade."_

 ** _Again...  
_** _No, no, no._

"I'm listening," Paula chirps dryly, lips twisted to one side.

 _"First I wanna talk to my people – make sure they're alright."_

A walker growls nearby and Molly is able to dispatch it. 'Chelle's gun glares at all three of us.

"I'm gonna put you on," Paula tells us, Carol first. "Just say you're fine, I'll know if you try anything else."

"Rick," Carol gasps into the talkie. "It's C-Carol, I'm fine but–"

With a scoff, Paula pushes her away. Carol's eyes drop to the floor again, staggering away into her possum fur, playing dead. I stare at her.

"Now you."

"Rick, it's Maggie. We're okay – we'll figure this out..."

"Shut up," Paula cuts her off, and 'Chelle cuts through another walker's face in the same moment. "You have your proof, le–"

 _"No,"_ Rick says, hoarse, badly. _"I want Oliver now. Put him on."_

"This his kid?" Paula asks us.

Quickly, Carol nods this little bit that makes Maggie and I try not to stare at her.

Paula buys it.

"Look, you're son's fine he's just," –she looks at me and shakes her head irritably– "not up to talking right now."

 _"No deal, not 'til–"_

Maggie lets out a gasp when she's yanked forward and told to speak on my behalf. "Rick, it's Maggie. Oliver's okay. He is. He's–"

Paula pushes her away and tells her to be quiet. "Alright, there's your reassurance, lets talk."

There's a long pause.

 _"Alright, this is the deal, right here,"_ Rick instructs. _"Let them go. You can have your guy back, and live."_

Paula frowns disapprovingly. "Three for one, that's not much of a trade."

 _"You don't have another choice. Or you would'a done somethin' about it already."_

 _Rick is smart. He can get us out of this.  
 **Like he did at the prison?**_

I shudder.

Paula puts down the binoculars and stares out over the compound.

"We have to get him back," Donnie pants, clutching his bleeding arm. Red drips from his fingers and from the end of the torn rag they'd tied over the wound to stop the flow, and is already puddling next to his boot. So much blood. As wet as if he'd just dipped his whole arm in a sink.

"Primo can take care of himself," she replies, tapping a finger to the talkie.

"He can patch me up," Donnie says, then looks at Carol, grimaces. "I need him now, thanks to that _bitch._ "

I'm watching him.

"You lost your balls, Paula. You should'a shot her in the head so they could hear her _die._ "

"If you could just _shut up._ I'll solve this."

"Either make the deal or we go in."

"She said _shut up_ so shut it!" Molly snaps at him, my own gun waving at my chest. "You should be _glad_ she doesn't have a sack o' gonads to trip over!"

 _"I know you're talkin' it over,"_ Rick says. _"It's a fair trade. Just come out, we do this, we all walk away."_

"Smug prick," 'Chelle growls. "He must think we're stupid."

"That's a good thing," Paula remarks.

" _Do we have a deal?"_

Another walker starts snarling.

"I'll get back to you," Paula answers.

Maggie is hooded under her coat, and then Carol, with a sharp gasp, and I watch Paula kill the third walker before the back of my coat is thrust over my head and everything goes dark and muffled.

* * *

Leaves crunch under my feet, and, under Aaron's coat, I catch moment glances at the ground I'm made to walk on. Our shadows are behind us, though it's hard to tell under the trees. East, I think. East away from the compound.

 _Shit.  
 **Don't think.**  
How're they gonna find us?  
 **Keep walking.  
** Somebody's going to die._

"Move!"

Somebody gets impatient and shoves me hard in the centre of my shoulder-blades. I hit the floor with a grunt, and growl, "I can't see!" only I don't get the words through the dirt in my mouth. I'm pulled up. Aaron's coat slips and I see around us –a dark green four-by-four Land-Rover parked on the side of a road I've never seen before– only for a moment, and then I'm hooded again.

"Turn."

I don't fall this time. I count this as an accomplishment because the shove was harder.

"Wait."

We're sat inside the truck and the door is shut. The engine starts. I hear Carol groan. She's claustrophobic.

 _She's tough.  
She'll keep it together. _

**_Yeah, but can you?_**

I hear duck-tape snap, and then my arm is grabbed and pulled up.

"What am I supposed to do with this thing? It's jus' a damned _stump,_ " Molly complains loudly, and when my hand comes up to pry hers open she smacks me hard on the wrist. "Git your paws off o' me, boy!"

I gargle.

"Think this one's got a screw loose."

" _Molls,_ just wrap his hand and stick it to the stump."

She's touching it, pulling off the bandage so the tape'll stick to my skin. I try to sit still, not think about it, but I throw up in my mouth, swallowing it again and again, choking. Most of it smears on the outside of Aaron's coat and dribbles down my front, and I'm just doing everything I possibly can not to either swallow, inhale or drop Lizzie's watch. I can't say the same about most of the dirt and debris. All I know is that by the time Molly is done binding my hand and arm there is an equal amount of yack, wrist watch and earth in my mouth, and at least some extent of yack and dirt down my front, too.

"Jesus Christ," Molly says, disgusted. "Definitely a loopy one."

She tries to stuff a gag in my mouth too but I refuse to open up, and then she gives up when I throw up in my mouth again, too disgusted.

"He'll choke. Just leave it."

 _Please, God, let Lizzie's watch still work.  
 **... Are you preying? Now?!  
** No._

 _...amen._

"Omega, omega, Saviors down," Paula is saying. "Go to Gamma, code: fire. Alpha channel is not clear. We follow the protocol. Where the hell are you guys?"

The static goes hay-wire. A man's voice comes through. Not Rick. _"Out west of the–"_ Too much static. _"Five mi – on – way."_

Paula sighs angrily. "We're headed to the break point. Switch to Theta channel, same code. If I'm not there, toggle to Alpha, listen in."

The static hisses. _"Copy that."_

* * *

A door is unlocked and it squeaks open eerily. My footsteps are short and fast, shoulders bunched. I can't see anything, not even my feet anymore. We're taken inside and led through. Doors shut and creak loudly. It smells of stale blood and mould.

"I hate this damn place," Molly complains. Walkers growl in other areas of the building. " _Safe house._ Ain't nothin' _safe_ about it."

"This _place_ is gonna save our asses," Paula retorts.

My hood is pulled off in the same moment a walker lunges for Maggie, but Paula's blade is driven through it's skull and she lets it slump to their feet...

"Get on the ground. You. There."

Maggie goes on the side opposite the door we just came through.

"You, that wall."

I sit where I'm told, propped against the wall to Maggie's left, my feet facing her. Two gas canisters are in front of me. My heart is pumping and I'm breathing is too fast and stomach acid is burning my chin and mouth and neck and throat. I know I'm too close to a panic attack, so to distract myself I consider nudging one of the canisters with my foot to see how full it is, but, for one, I'd probably get a bullet in my brain, and two, 'Chelle takes them out of the room anyway.

"You," Paula hisses. "Over there."

Carol goes to the wall on the other side of the door, opposite Maggie, all of us making a triangle with the walker's corpse in the middle of us. Maggie and Carol have gags in their mouths already. Either the Saviors have forgotten to try again at putting one in mine or the loony persona they have of me is convincing enough to let them leave me with my self-applied gag. Regardless, I don't draw attention to myself.

 _Breathe,_ I tell myself. _Just breathe, please. Shut your eyes and think of something that isn't scary._

* * *

 _"Wish we had heating."_

 _"Cold?"_

 _"Yeah."_

 _"D'you want a hot water bottle or somethin'?"_

 _"No."_

 _"We don't have one anyway."_

 _"I'll deal with it."_

 _"Okay, you'll_ deal with it _."_

 _"..."_

 _"..."_

 _"..."_

 _"Oliver?"_

 _"Uh-huh?"_

 _"You're shivering."_

 _"I am so cold, man."_

 _"Thought you said you could_ deal with it _..."_

 _"_ _Look, we both know that you've got some kind of supernatural immunity against freezing to death, but unfortunately, I do not. So, if you don't mind, I'm gonna go back to my cell to get war – oof!"_

 _"B_ _etter?"_

 _"You're hugging me."_

 _"Yup."_

 _"Erm."_

 _"Y_ _ou don't have to leave yet. I can get you a sleeping bag."_

 _"..."_

 _"Will you stay?"_

 _"... I'll stay, Carl."_

* * *

My hair is dangling in sweaty waves over my eyes and cheeks.

I've lost my beanie.

I know it's stupid, but a small part of my heart breaks because of this.

Slowly, I glance up. A high up window. Dirt coats the glass so thickly that the light is dim and greying, and it's too high to even think of escaping through without a ladder or a pair of shoulders to climb on top of. Some kind of odd looking equipment is on my left and right; like some sort of tool or lever. Above us along the ceiling are rails, like the ones you use for shower curtains, only this doesn't look like a locker room. The walls are stained red, splatters of it everywhere, even on the green wall behind me. I squint at a sign on the far wall, it reads:

 _'CAUTION  
FRESH ANIMAL CARCASSES'_

We're in a slaughterhouse...

 ** _Again._**

"You're wondering if there's a way out of this," Paula says. Her voice is so low and gravelly she almost sounds like she groans when she speaks. She's taping Carol's legs together. "There isn't. Not unless I say so."

She goes about taping mine and Maggie's legs together too. 'Chelle drags the corpse out of the room, trailing black, and when I watch her go I see shadows shambling through the corridors.

"Walkers," I try to warn, but I just breathe heavily and gargle. 'Chelle frowns at me, disturbed, and I rock my head forward frantically. She looks around.

"Paula, I need backup!"

There's gunfire.

"I want to kill all three of you _right now,_ " Paula growls, heading to the door. "It's taking _all_ I have not to, so go ahead, I dare you, try something. Just see what happens."

The door slams, and then it's just the three of us.

Carol, Maggie and I.

The gunfire muffles loudly through the building, and walkers are growling from every corner of it. So many it sounds like they're coming from above, too. The door's gust had made a dust-cloud. It gets in my eyes and my nose and I cough violently, and then I throw up, spluttering and choking out the dirt and vomit and leaves and sticks. I pick through the puddle, savagely, pulling out Lizzie's watch with my index and middle finger (since they're the only two I can move with all the duck-tape). I shake it off as best I can. They're watching me, Carol and Maggie, mortified, but I ignore them, deciding I don't care, deciding that they both know this and aren't going to bother reprimanding me for putting up such effort to keep the thing in the first place.

I try to use the watch to cut myself free, but with two fingers and a whole hand and stump full of tape, it's useless, so, with difficulty, I manage to stuff the possession into my boot. Maggie has already swung herself over to face the corner of the wall she's by. It sticks out, and she uses the edge to get a good start on cutting at her tape. She nods at me to do the same.

"There's no wall to use," I whisper back. My voice scratches.

She nods again, grunting, so I look at where she's gesturing, still sawing away at her tape, and I see the corner of the equipment fixture next to me. I try it, and for the first few moments no damage is taken, but after a while it starts to split, little by little. I keep trying. When I look up at Carol she's stuffing something into her pocket.

There are footsteps.

"They're coming," I murmur. "Guys. Maggie, _stop._ "

She hears me, and then she hears them, and frantically we re-sit ourselves. I brace myself for their entry, for how hard I'll have to work to not flinch at every hiss they direct at us, for whatever other trick they have up their sleeve, only Carol starts hyperventilating.

Maggie grimaces at her, shaking her head in confusion.

I'm staring, horrified, because she's getting worse.

She's crying.

She's writhing.

She's gagging.

She's screaming, muffled into the gag.

"Carol?" I ask breathlessly. "W...what'reyoudoing?"

She stares at me desperately, and I'm just staring at her, terrified. I can't even tell if she's playing possum.

The Saviors burst through the door.

"When's the last time anyone checked this place?"

"It was fine a month ago."

"Sweetie, that was a month ago. Shit hards quick. The guns've gone bye-bye, The food's gone bye-bye. We got growlers up and down the halls."

Carol's turning purple, heaving and whining. I'm gasping, too afraid to tell if it's my heart or brain that is pounding faster. I try to say her name, move towards her, but I'm trembling too hard to get my mouth to work, and the tape around my ankles is too tight, so I push the back of my head against the wall and shut my eyes.

Carol gets louder.

"Means people can get through, too," Donnie says. "Maybe we should get gone."

I flinch when Maggie shouts into her gag.

"Yeah? Where the hell to?" 'Chelle ignores her.

"Nowhere," Paula answers. "Got dead in the halls: Free security. Those assholes get here before our people, the coldbloods will buy us some time."

Carol gets worse, her rasps vibrate through the whole room. I shudder down from it, tell myself, _It's okay, she's acting._

 ** _Is she?_**

 _She's a strong lady._

She's howling.

"Shut up!" Paula barks at her.

"Jesus, it's bleeding – it's not supposed to keep bleeding," Donnie groans.

"Molly, give me the rope," Paula orders.

"I'm not losing it." When he looks at my arm he winces. "I'm _not._ "

"Grind it out."

"Screw you, 'Chelle!" he cries. "We have to get Primo back. He can fix it. We have to, Paula."

" _No_ ," she orders, and she's tying the rope tightly around his injury. "I saw them, you didn't. They took the place down, they got the guns, they'll kill us, too. I'm not going down like that, not after making it this far."

"Sh...she's choking," I mutter breathlessly, begging, my voice cracking and small. My heart pumps so violently I twitch to it, heaving to the beats. Carol is choking and suffocating and she – "She needs help... please?"

"Well look who found his voice!" Molly says, impressed. "Gotta speak up, honey. Can't hear ya."

I point to Carol. Molly thinks I'm just reaching for her and laughs.

"Check him," Paula instructs. "Find the watch. He could use it as a weapon."

'Chelle rushes at me, points a gun to my head and yanks me forward by my hair. I hit the cement hard and cry out. "What'd you do with it?!" she growls over me. "Huh!?"

I shake my head, trying to tell them about Carol but the words crumble in my throat, and then 'Chelle's hands are grabbing at me, rooting through every pocket and up every sleeve and leg. She forgets my boots, like I'd hoped, only I'm still an idiot because I can't use a stupid children's watch to defend myself anyway. There's not even a buckle to use as a sharp edge. But I get to keep it, that's all I wanted.

"Damned fool swallowed it!" Molly cackles.

"I'll be damned," 'Chelle breathes, stepping back, mouth open. I stare at them, helpless, mumbling words that aren't forming no matter how hard I try.

"God dammit, I told you he was bat-shit crazy," Molly says. "Now we gotta put up with his loony talk 'til this whole thing's done with."

Carol is heaving.

"H _h_ eyh!" Maggie growls at them. "HE _HH_!"

"What?" Paula spits, yanking out Maggie's gag.

"She's hyperventilating!" Maggie yells. "Somebody needs to take her gag off!"

Carol's whole body shudders dangerously.

I know what this is.

She's seen me do it.

She's doing the same thing, mimicking how I'll push my head back and sob up at the air.

"She's a nervous little bird, ain't she?" Molly says, pulling her gag out.

Carol inhales desperately. In. Out. In. Out. Rolling away from them and curling up into a ball.

A gun clicks and 'Chelle is aiming at her. "Look at you. Bitch, how did you make it this far?"

Molly bends over her. "Honey, you need to take some yoga breaths and calm your ass down."

I try to settle my breath, confused and terrified and exhausted, gritting my teeth and tensing my whole body through the shudders.

Carol is pawing at her khaki knee pocket. "Can't," she gasps, panting. Molly reaches into the pocket and pulls out some prayer beads. Rosaries, I think they're called. When it's handed to her, Carol clutches the rosaries to her lips and mutters into them.

"Oh..." Molly groans. "You're one of _those._ "

Carol wheezes, breathing through the beads.

"What are you so afraid of?" Paula asks curiously.

Carol doesn't answer, just kisses the beads. She looks like a child. Like Mika when she'd get nightmares... like _me_ when I get them.

"Are you actually afraid to die?" Paula scoffs. "All this and you're scared of getting your ticket punched?"

"It doesn't matter what happens to me," Carol murmurs, exhausted. Tears roll down her cheeks. "Just don't hurt them. Don't hurt Oliver, or – or the baby."

They tense up.

All four of them.

"Yeah, right," 'Chelle growls, her aim trained at Maggie now.

"She got a bun in the oven, she doesn't look it," Donnie challenges.

"I'm only two months, I think."

"You're some kind of stupid, getting knocked up at a time like this," Paula says.

Maggie almost laughs, and when she's asked why, she says, "Was it ever _smart_ to get knocked up? Women used to just die in childbirth. And they always thought the world was gonna end. Living through it, why would you just give up?"

"But _are_ you gonna live through it?" Paula asks... then she starts talking about how babies are the point, our future, bite-size snacks for the dead. "The point is to stay standing."

"No," Maggie says. "Walkers do that. I'm choosing something."

"That's right. You are. You did."

Paula leaves the room, and Donnie groans when a large swell of blood dribbles down his arm. He's sat directly opposite me and when he sees me staring he grimaces. Molly lights a cigarette she'd taken from Carol's pack. I can smell it. It reminds me of the summer past, waking up early to sit out on the roof. I'd hear and smell her smoking. I was mad at her, when I found out. I never told her but it didn't take her long to realise because that was when I started hiding them.

Molly starts coughing violently.

"The baby," Carol says over her, but Molly just laughs. Her laugh is jagged and sickly and scratchy. It becomes apparent to me that Molly either has a very dark sense of humour or she just isn't really amused at all when she laughs, but laughs rather more like she might be crying instead, like somehow in her head the two opposite emotional responses are flipped.

"Honey, in case you haven't noticed, you've got bigger problems than a little second-hand smoke."

Carol grimaces, and when she looks at me I look away. I'm not sure if I do out of choice, coincidence, or submission. The latter feels the most accurate, like I'm not allowed to look at her anymore. Like she's rusted so much that looking at her might not really be looking at her. Like my eyes really are so bad that I can't manage to even _see_ her anymore...

 ** _Did you ever see her at all?_**

Molly takes another drag.

"Molls," 'Chelle asks.

The old woman tuts disapprovingly, then snubs the cigarette out with her finger. "Y'all are worse than a bunch of evangelical second graders." She walks away, and then starts coughing again, hacking up her lungs so badly that I bring my knees up to my chest.

"Those things'll kill you," Carol says.

"They already have," Molly says to her, and shows the red stain on her handkerchief. "I'm a dead woman walking. Which puts us in exactly the same boat."

* * *

The Savior's scout crew is coming.

Paula just came in and told them. –"Thirty minutes out, maybe less."

Donnie's arm is still bleeding terribly. Maggie told them he doesn't have that time, that his nerves are dying, that if he doesn't get medical help he could lose more than just his arm. She knows this, of course. Her father lost a leg. I lost a hand. She tried to get her to talk to Rick but Paula ignored her.

Then something bad happened.

Really bad.

Donnie got angry, "You did this to me," he told Carol, and when he didn't sit down it suddenly dawned on me the type of man he is...

"You're not gonna make the trade. Just do'm all now."

"No," Paula retorted, "we wait for the others. We have to be smart. We need insurance."

"Then shoot her in the arm, too."

"No!"

"You really gonna stick up for some gutless bitch over me?"

They started yelling, and it got bad when he hit Paula. But then it got even worse when Maggie tried to stop him, knocking him to the floor with her feet, and when he grabbed her she head-butted him, and somehow I rammed into his legs like a bull and he staggered away from her, but there wasn't anything I could do as he seized my middle and threw me clean across the floor. I hit the fixture and it cut a part of my shoulder-blade open, tearing through my clothes, and Carol tried to grab him when he came after me, only the whole world shuddered to a stand still when he kicked her off of him and beat her.

It was brutal.

I felt every strike.

" _NUGH_!"

Every clout.

" _AGHH_!"

Every blow.

" _GAUH_!"

And all I did was scream... "STOP! _STOP,_ PLEASE, _STOP IT_!"

The butt of Paula's gun connected to his temple, and Donnie was knocked out cold. I was heaving, mortified, screaming and whimpering for Carol but she wasn't moving. I tried to shuffle but the duck-tape took me down, and by the time I'd gotten to my knees 'Chelle knocked me over again. I still fought her. I threw my head back and caught her hand against the wall. She has an amputated little finger, so she fell back and screamed, and I was going to swing around and kick her in the stomach, but Paula stepped over, and then–

 _CRACK!_

* * *

 _When I was a child, I heard voices  
Some would sing and some would scream  
You soon find you have few choices  
I learned the voices died with me_

 _When I was a child, I'd sit for hours  
Staring into open flame  
Something in it had a power  
Could barely tear my eyes away_

 _All you have is your fire  
And the place you need to reach  
Don't you ever tame your demons  
But always keep them on a leash..._

I dream that my brain is a factory. A big, rusty, dirty factory, built to make acorns and beetroot cookies. They're produced and stocked inside my skull. Too many of them. Too many cookies and too many acorns. So many my head is filling up with them, bursting. They crack and split me, my whole face, exploding out of my eyes and nose and mouth and ears. It hurts. Hurts. Hurts. Hurts. Hurts. Something picks me up. A troll. Bright purple fur and big, green, beady eyes. It tells me it's going to eat all of my acorns and cookies and I tell it I don't want it to, that they're mine, that I spent a lot of time growing and storing them for my family. But the troll tells me my family are going to die soon anyway, and then it drops me into a black hole...

I come to.

My skull throbs.

I'm too afraid to move.

There's a boy lying in front of me, nose to nose, and his name is Michael Loyals. There is blood trickling out of his mouth and his eyes are wide and terrified.

 _"Sucks, huh?"_ he asks, gasping it, gagging it, _"being murdered."_

"I'm not dead," I tell him, only my mouth doesn't open.

 _"Just let it happen, Oliver. Let it take you."_

"I'm afraid."

 _"So was I,"_ he says, not bitter, simply telling me the truth. _"But you killed me anyway."_

"I'm sorry."

 _"...Me, too."_

Ronald Anderson is here, too.

 _"You aren't afraid of being dead,"_ he tells me. A part of his scalp is hanging over his forehead and there's a small seeping hole in the centre of his chest. _"You're just afraid of the dying part."_

"I... I have to make sure they're okay."

 _"It's not so bad,"_ Mikey reassures me, and I listen to him. He's knelt over me now, kissing my forehead. Mikey was so kind. _"It's scary, but it only lasts for a few seconds, swear it. A few seconds of hurt, that's all it is. Then it's over."_

I shut my eyes. "Okay."

 _"They're gonna hate you,"_ Ron says, whispering in my ear. _"Just survive somehow. Asshole, you're not doing it right."_

 _"You don't have to,"_ Mikey says, only then he starts sounding like Carol. _"Oliver..._ Oliver. Oliver are you awake?"

I inhale sharply.

 _"Shit,"_ Ron grins, like he's impressed. _"You really are some kind of stupid."_

When I move my head he goes away, they both do, and without moving the rest of me I look around – afraid of the hurt. Maggie and 'Chelle aren't here, and Donnie lies motionless beside me. He's breathing, barely. I try opening my mouth. My cheek is swollen. I wince, grunt, then hear a sharp breath and look up to see Carol. She's staring at me, asking if I'm okay, and without answering I say _no,_ I say, _I want to die,_ I say, _you just got beaten and there was nothing I could do about it. Carol Carol Carol. I want to die._

Molly is talking to Paula, tending to the cut on her cheek. I look up, squinting through my headache, heavy and bruised and close to passing out again.

"Excuse me?" Carol says then, soft, polite.

Paula sighs exasperatedly.

"Oliver's awake. Could you help him up, please?"

With a nod from Paula, Molly stomps towards me. She grabs my shoulder and props me against the wall. I yelp, and I feel the squelch and painful sting of the cut on my right shoulder-blade.

I try to ask for Maggie but my voice cracks.

"She's gone for questioning with 'Chelle," Molly says. She smells of body odour and nicotine. "No sense worryin' 'bout her, fruit-loop."

I'm glaring at her.

"Thank you," Carol says. "And, thank you for helping Maggie – for helping me."

I'm still glaring, only at her now.

"My husband, Ed, he used to–"

"Yeah!? I don't care if your old man used to ring your bell," Paula interrupts her rudely. "I see exactly who you are, Carol. I know. You're pathetic. You wanna think we're just the same? Go ahead. You're wrong."

 _You have no idea, Paula.  
 **Yeah, neither do you, huh?**_

Carol looks at Donnie questioningly.

"He's just a warm body for my bed," Paula remarks. "That's it. I could kill him in his sleep."

Carol rubs her Rosary between her hands, praying.

"Do you really believe in that crap?"

"My faith got me through the death of my daughter."

"Hmm. Well, the good news is maybe you'll see her again soon."

I'm glaring. At the floor. Breathing and hating and hurting and not moving.

"Kid."

It's Paula.

I don't look at her.

"You don't seem like a bible-thumper, too."

Still, I don't look at her.

She squares up to me, stood over me. "So what _do_ you believe in?"

Slowly, I lift my eyes, but not my head... _I believe that you're a shell,_ I think. _I believe that you're going to do something stupid, and it's going to get you killed. Or worse, it's going to get us all killed._

"Creepy little bastard, aren't ya?" Molly grumbles from the side, rolling her shoulders uncomfortably. When I glare at her too she grimaces. "Hell. Whatever's wrong with you, I hope it ain't contagious."

 _"Have you thought about it?"_ Rick's voice, suddenly, cracking static. _"Talk to me."_

Walkers growl in the hallways like ghosts.

"You _weren't_ listening," Paula reprimands through the talkie. "I said I'd contact you."

Static... _"Would it make a difference if I said I was sorry about that?"_

"What do you think?"

 _"I think we're gonna make the trade, so tell me where."_

"We haven't agreed to that."

 _"You will."_

"You know what? I'm not so sure. We'd be taking most of the risk, not getting much in the way of a reward."

The static makes me itch.

 _"The other option won't work out for you."_

Paula paces, then says, "We'll take our chances."

She takes her finger off the speaker and starts pacing.

Carol sighs. "You don't have to do this. You don't have to fight."

"Your people killed all of my people." Molly growls. "Of course we gotta fight."

"We didn't want to."

"But you did," Paula says, "so tell me why."

"Your people ambushed my people on the road, tried to take everything we had." Carol starts crying again. "They were gonna kill them."

"Well, damn," Molly groans. "So now we know what happened to T's group."

"Wait, that was seven months ago," Paula says sceptically.

"Those idiots," Molly says. "Probably put on a big show."

"Okay, fair play," Paula relents. "You were just defending yourselves. But, see, your people killed them on the road, right? Blew them to pieces. All that time ago and we never found you... so, why not stop?"

Carol looks away, forgetting about that loop-hole.

"Negan," I murmur, the strange word –that I've only heard a few times in my life– tumbling out of me cautiously, climbing into the web of lies Carol is crafting. "Said they were w-working for someone called Negan." I falter. "We – we knew we were on borrowed time before you'd find us."

Paula turns to me, glares.

Carol is waiting to see where I go with this.

"And what do you think you know about Negan?" Paula asks challengingly.

 _Everyone was afraid,_ I should say. _Negan was a bogeyman._ But I'm stuttering; out of voice.

"He sounded like a maniac," Carol sobs. "We were scared! We had to stop him."

"Sweetie, sweetie," Molly says... "We are all Negan."

My breath hitches, and my eyes snap up to her.

"What do you mean?" Carol asks shrilly.

Molly is coughing again, spluttering crimson into her handkerchief. Walkers wrack against the doors, shrieking into the glass. Carol looks at me, and for the first time since we got here I know exactly what she's feeling, right in this moment, because she's afraid, truly and deathly afraid.

"W...what does that mean?"

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Arsonist's Lullaby_ by Hozier.

Ron and Mikey were like the angel and demon on Oliver's shoulders, and telling which from which was hard for him. Like, Mikey was nicer to him but also told him to die, whereas Ron was cruel but told him to survive. Think the song touched pretty well into that, too.

Happy reading.


	18. The Same Boat, Part 2: Fire

**IWalkOnMyOwn** :D thank youuu that means the world

 **The Sorrowful Deity** It was very fun to write x)

 **RHatch89** Thanks! ^.^

 **Noisy Sunday** I actually love you, and Enid, and just your whole review and existence. Yeah, I love writing Enid and Oliver. Thank youuu. Actually, I read that Carl did have amnesia in the show they just didn't go into it, and obviously he didn't have to forget he had a boyfriend xD Ah man it's embarrassing how much bad writing you have put up with from me. You deserve a medal for trudging through this shit.

 **Random Fandom Kid** Thank you! AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR FANART!

* * *

 _Check out_ **lord-of-fandoes-and-other-things** _fanart of Oliver on Tumblr. So great. Thanks._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _R.I.P. to my youth_

 _And you can call this the funeral  
I'm just telling the truth  
And you can play this at my funeral  
Tell my sister, don't cry and don't be sad  
I'm in paradise with Dad  
Close my eyes and then cross my arms  
Put me in the dirt, let me be with the stars..._

"Can I have one?"

Molly had snubbed the latest cigarette out, having already lit another one to follow. At Carol's question, she snickers wheezily. "Well, look at you, little bird. I didn't think you _approved._ "

"I don't."

I watch the cigarette light, hear it crackle, and Carol very carefully does not look at me.

"You _are_ weak," Paula states. "What are you so afraid of? So scared you can't even stick to your own principles."

There's a pause, and I barely hear Carol's reply because she says it so quietly, pinching the very end of the cigarette between her lips. "You don't want me to stick to my own principles."

For a while there's quiet. I haven't said anything but smoke isn't exactly good for asthmatics as well as unborn babies, but I still try, hard, forcing the tighten in my throat out of my mind. But it grows, like some kind of tar filling my throat, so I cough, and once I start I can't stop. Stress induced, like I've said before, is not a useful ailment in the apocalypse. Molly tells me to shut up, even when she's coughing herself.

Carol snubs out her cigarette.

I glare at the floor, wheezing.

"Asthmatic, right?" Paula asks. She looks at Carol and smirks. "Shameless, little bird."

Carol eyes are wetting.

I can't look at her.

Paula turns to me, "You know, you seem like a good kid. You've got your demons, I see that..." When she looks at my arm I only just notice that the sleeve of my coat and flannel has been torn open, bruises exposed, all of them. I push myself back and hide them. Paula grimaces and keeps talking: "Quiet. Sweet. Polite. _Handsome._ " She rolls her eyes. "The kind of boy my eldest would come home heartbroken over."

She turns away, paces the room.

"I was a Secretary, before," Paula starts telling us after a while. "I fetched coffee for my boss and made him feel good about himself. I spent most of my days reading stupid inspirational e-mails to try and feel good about myself. There was this one that kept going around: A young woman was having a hard time and told her mom she wanted to give up, so her mom went to the kitchen and started boiling three pots of water. She put a carrot in one, an egg in another, and ground coffee beans in the last one. After they'd boiled a while, her mom said:

 _'Look, all three things went through the same boiling water.  
_ _The carrot went in strong and came out soft,  
_ _the egg was fragile, and came out hard,  
_ _but the coffee beans changed, the water, itself.'_

...you're supposed to wanna be the coffee beans."

I try not to think too much about whether I'm the carrot or the egg, because I know for damned sure I'm not the coffee beans.

"See, to me, coffee was just a thing that my boss would drink up," Paula goes on. "No matter how many times I refilled his damn cup, it was just never enough. I was at work when the Army took over D.C. We weren't allowed to leave. They had to evacuate all the important people first – members of Congress, government employees. So I was stuck with my boss. Not my family – my husband, my _four_ girls..."

She turns away at their mention again, only this time I see it –the way her chin shakes and her eyes grow wet, for just one split moment, and it makes her look so... _human._ But then it's gone.

"My boss was weak and stupid and he was going to die and he was going to take me down, too. He was the first person I killed, so that I could live. I stopped counting when I hit double digits. That's right around the time I stopped feeling bad about it."

I wince when Molly flicks her ash at me. It hits my shoulder. She grins, and I'm averting my eyes from anybody, holding down the cough itching at my throat.

"I am not like you," Paula tells Carol. "I'm still me, but better. I lost everything and it made me stronger."

"You sure about that?" Carol asks, and the ash on her cigarette is so long that I'm waiting for it to drop off.

"I'm alive," Paula retorts.

"With those people, those killers?"

"Your people are killers, Carol. That makes you a killer."

Carol is crying again, the silent kind. "You – you're the one."

"Excuse me?" Paula questions.

"You're the one who's afraid to die," Carol is saying. "And you're going to. You _will_ die. It's what's gonna happen if you don't work this out."

"Are _you_ going to kill me?" Paula challenges her.

"...I hope not."

* * *

"Asshole, are you there?" Paula asks, and I brace for the static but it doesn't come.

 _"I'm here,"_ Rick replies.

"We've thought about it. We want to make the trade."

 _"That's good."_

"There's a large field with a sign that says _'God is dead'_ about two miles down I-sixty-six. Good visibility in all directions."

 _"We'll meet you there."_

"Ten minutes?"

 _"Ten minutes."_

Paula pockets the talkie and is pacing again, shaking her head. "Mm-m. Now, that was too easy."

"Maybe they're just itching to get their people back," Molly says.

"No, there was no static," Paula replies anxiously, pulling her hair. "There should've been static. They're close. They're probably already here."

Carol looks at me shortly.

"We were careful, but there were tracks," Paula goes on. "There had to be."

"No," Carol whispers.

"They killed everybody back home. They have the weapons. They know what they're doing. They're probably waiting to kill us as soon as we walk out those doors. That's what we'd do."

"...no."

"Carol," I whisper.

Molly kicks me.

" _Ack_!"

"Boy, shut up. Gittin' on ma nerves."

"You have to listen to me, please?" Carol begs quietly, crying again. "Rick is a man of his word. He wouldn't put me and Maggie at risk – to attack. He wouldn't put his own son–"

"Then he's just as stupid as you are."

Carol goes quiet.

Paula switches frequency. "What's your ETA?"

Itchy static.

 _"A few minutes away,"_ a man says, _"but the car's running on fumes."_

"We have gas," Paula reassures him. "We'll fill you up and then we move. Radio when you're back in the perimeter."

 _"Copy that."_

 _Shit. Shit. They'll be sitting ducks!  
 **But what if they are outside?  
** Then Paula's gonna tell her people and our group're gonna be wiped out before they know what happened.  
 **They'll take captives, torture us until we lead them back to–**_

"Oliver?"

At Carol's whisper, I gasp aloud, and I realise what I'm doing, because I'm suddenly struggling frantically against the tape, panicking.

 _Fuck fuck fuck._

"Carol," I rasp, crumbling, and then Molly knees me in the shoulder.

"Quiet, fruit-loop, or you'll be swallowin' more than just a watch."

When I cannot stop she grabs my jaw, shaking her cigarette in front of my mouth, and I panic worse, breathing too heavily and shaking too hard. I try to clamp my teeth but her fingers squeeze, hard, and it's so painful that I can't help but cry out, grunting and struggling against her, my whole body shuddering.

"C'mere, boy!"

" _Argh_! Get _uffuh_ me _h_! P _hhh_ s!"

"Crazy bastard! Quit you're screamin' unless ya want ever' god-damn growler comin' after ya!"

I'm crying, heaving my breath, _dyingdyingdying!_

"Stop, please?!" Carol begs. "He's just a child!"

Ash hits my tongue and I gag helplessly.

"Insurance, Molls!" Paula growls.

Grudgingly, the old hag lets go, grimaces. "One more sound, boy," she warns, "I swear to _God_!"

 ** _Don't...  
... Oliver, don't._**

But I do. I spit on her shoe and grunt out the words, " _Fuck_ you, bitch!" for the first time in my whole life, and for a strange moment Molly looks like she didn't even hear me, but then she sighs, like she's tired, only...

 ** _oh no._**

...she lunges.

" _Arrghhh_!" I scream when she grabs me, fighting without hands or legs, but she's yanking my head back by my hair, violently.

"DAMN YOU!"

And then the cigarette is in my mouth.

All of it.

Pushed shut with a hand against my chin.

Skin burns and sizzles across my tongue and cheeks. I do something worse than scream then. Every part of me writhes against the agony. When I try to spit it out she clamps over my mouth with her other hand. I'm about to bite her, hard, so hard I'm prepared to crunch right through bone, but Paula tears her off of me.

" _Molls_! For crying out loud!" she shouts, and the old lady shrieks in pain when her hair is pulled. I'm already spluttering out the cigarette, wheezing and coughing and throwing up. Bile stings the new sores and my throat is on fire. "We _need_ the insurance, dammit! That's his _son._ You kill him you kill us all."

Molly growls like a pissed off Rottweiler.

"Lost a _damn_ good cig 'cause o' you, boy!"

"Deal with it!" Paula growls over my spluttering.

"God, I _hate_ kids! Should'a shot him through the skull first off."

"Shut _up_! I'm thinking."

Molly spits on me, and I flinch and cough and wipe my cheek on my shoulder, ash and yack sticking to my mouth, and when I stretch my jaw it aches badly. So badly it's making me cry like a child. Carol is staring at me, panting, her eyes watering. I look away from her, whimpering and crying and so angry I can't even bear it. I fold into myself. Clench every muscle until they ache. It pulls these awful sobs out of me that hurt my stomach, and I'm doing what I do when I can't bear things anymore, when the hurt gets so bad I need to hurt worse for it to stop.

Biting my tongue.

Cracking my toes.

Grinding my forehead into the wall.

"Stop," Carol is whimpering, quiet and desperate and I don't believe her and I need her to stop it. "Oliver, stop, please."

"We gotta get ready," I hear Paula. "Pull 'Chelle out so she doesn't get stuck in a fight. We have to be ready to move at any second."

"What about the girl?" Molly asks. Then she's flinging a lighter at me. "Dammit, boy, SHUT UP!"

" _Leave_ him, and leave her for now," Paula answers. "If we leave, we travel light. And if the pricks are here, we pick 'em off at the door."

She leaves the room and takes out both walkers waiting outside. Molly is glaring at me. I'm glaring back, jolting dangerously to my heartbeat.

"Molls, we need this hall clear."

The door slams and then they're gone, their footsteps fading. Tears roll down my cheeks, furiously. Carol takes a deep, long breath, then looks at me, hard as rock again. "The fixture," she says sternly, "keep cutting. I'll use the rosary."

I stare at her, shaking violently.

"Come on. Now."

With a grimace, I push myself over, sawing against the fixture. She gets to sharpening the cross against the cement. After long enough my arms are free, and I use my teeth to tear the tape off of my hand, ignoring the welts and sores and bruises. I leave the tape on my amp when I realise I'll waste time on nothing, instead I start on my ankles, finding the end and unwrapping it as quickly as I can.

Carol has cut her hands free, and I crawl over and use the rosary cross to cut her feet free, too. When I stand, she takes my hand and holds onto it. I don't look at her. Instead I'm crying, the silent kind because I can't stop anymore.

"Oliver."

" _What_?"

Carol falters.

She's lost an earring.

" _Get_ up," I growl, only my voice is wobbly and weak and angry. "We need to get Maggie."

I feel her eyes but I don't meet them, so when we are at the door, we listen, hear nothing, and leave; backs to the walls, stepping around corpses and creeping down hallways. It's dark. Like it was in Terminus. Only here it's mouldy and unclean and deserted, and everything feels further away than it ever has before.

Maggie isn't in the Kill Floor, or the supply closet.

Carol grabs the hem of my coat and pulls me back from turning the corner. I don't know why until I hear Molly burst across the hallway, the wall hiding us while we pin our backs to it and listening to her grunting and fighting other walkers.

"Just a sec, sugar," the old lady coughs.

 _Shluck._

The growling stops and Carol tugs my sleeve, and then we're moving the other way, trying another hallway, listening to every door before checking inside. They're all empty until we get to the Machine Room. It's the sawing we hear first, rough and quick, and the huffing. We push inside and in the same moment Maggie has cut herself free.

I keep watch while Carol helps tear her ankles free.

"Are you okay?" Maggie asks, hugging her.

"Have to be," Carol replies breathlessly.

I had my back to them, so when Maggie rushes up and hugs me I stagger.

"Y'alright, sweetie?" she asks into my hair. I don't answer because she's tugging down the collar of my clothes to see the cut on my shoulder-blade. "Need to get you patched up. Paula bruised your cheek but she didn't break skin. God, look at me, oh, Jesus, what did she do to you, your lips're bleedin'."

"I'm okay," I swallow, and when Maggie hugs me again I wince into her shoulder.

"They've spread out, but I think we can make it past them," Carol whispers. "We have to try."

"We can't leave them alive," Maggie says.

"No, we should just go."

"Carol, we have to finish this. We have to."

It's a nod, and then we're heading back to the slaughter room. Donnie is still in here. When Maggie unties the rope around his arm, blood leaks out of him fast enough that we can hear it trickling, and he's rasping...

"He was already dead," Maggie says, her finger pressed to his wrist.

"Careful," I whisper. "He's turning."

"We should go," Carol murmurs.

"We need a gun," Maggie replies flatly. "Gimmie that."

Carol hands back the rope and Maggie fastens it around his belt, then ties the other end to the fixture I'd been sat by. His empty shell opens its eyes and sits up, and Carol pulls me back even though I'm out of reach. Donnie growls, so we leave and hide inside an empty supply closet next door that I'd seen Molly clear before. Just in time, because the very woman comes back to check on us.

There is a snarl.

Then a scream.

And then a thud when a body goes down.

"Where are ya, _Magnolia_?!" Molly roars furiously, her breath shaking and her own blood dripping down her front. He bit her arm. _Dead woman walking._ I know this because we are inside the slaughter room again. "I wanna bloody up that nice–"

Maggie is on her, stealing her gun and shoving it into her forehead with a heavy _crack._ The old lady hits the floor with a splutter, and then Maggie is murdering her, gun connecting to face, over and over until there's nothing left but a caved in hole.

"Let's go," Carol whispers.

We shut the door, and we're rushing to the exits with a gun and a knife between the three of us that Maggie and Carol take, and I go about opening doors and moving things out of the way if needed. The corridor is darker here, and the smell of death worsens. There's a dead end ahead, only not, maybe. Walkers are impaled on spikes and we're not getting through as long as they're standing.

"They're using them to keep us in, keep the others out," Carol tells us.

"Come on," Maggie "We have to find 'em."

We start our way through, but Maggie only just kills the closest walker by the time–

 ** _CLACK!  
CLACK!  
CLAP!  
CLACK!  
CLACK!_**

We're crouched and cowering, but we hear the chiming of empty bullets and we know she's ran out of ammo. She doesn't re-load, because when Paula emerges around the corner she's defenceless, and she looks mortified. No, she looks more _furious_ than sad. Carol aims at her, and I expect the shot but nothing comes. Maggie's fist is gripping the back of my coat, holding me where I am behind the crate we're ducked by. A walker shrieks down my neck but under it's impalement it can't reach.

Paula steps closer.  
Lurking.  
Like a snake.

"Just run," Carol tells her.

"Shoot her," Maggie mutters.

"Go on, do it," Paula snarls. Her voice is shaking, and this time I can't tell if it's out of fury or sadness. "You've killed Donnie, you've killed Molly. Your people have destroyed my home."

"Get outta here..."

"Carol," Maggie, again.

"You have _no_ idea," Paula growls. "The things I've done, what I've given up, what I had to do."

"Just _run._ "

"Carol, shoot her!" Maggie again.

"Go ahead. I've already lost everything."

A walker comes free and falls towards Carol, but before it can reach her I lunge at it, instinctively, pinning it against the wall. There's a grunt and then a gun shot and then when I'm struggling to keep the walker away Maggie is driving her knife up through its chin. I heave breathlessly, and Paula is writhing on the floor, a gunshot in her shoulder.

"Paula?"

It's 'Chelle.

"Paula?"

She's coming.

"Molly?"

It was meant to be me. I planned it my head. I was going to grab her gun and Carol was going to shoot her if I couldn't. I even nod to them that I've got this. But Maggie runs at the same time I do, shoving me aside, and when I hit the floor she makes her attack and as 'Chelle's gun flings across the room I duck.

"YOU LYING BITCH!" she screams. Then she pulls out a knife and slices Maggie's stomach.

I see her shudder, and then...

 ** _BANG!_**

...'Chelle hits the floor when her brain explodes.

Carol and I lower our guns, only it's mine that has the smoking barrel.

I double over when I know it's done, horrified. Because I'll never get used to it. Ever. Killing. It eats me up and swallows me whole with jagged teeth and clawing hands. Makes my skin burn. My heart sink. My soul shatter, like pottery. Then I'm clambering past the body, grabbing at Maggie, making noises while I paw desperately at her stomach.

"I'm okay," she gasps, cupping my cheeks and pulling so I have to look at her eyes. "Just my shirt. Jus' my shirt. Promise."

When Carol tells me to, I grab 'Chelle's knife and keep hold of her gun, ignoring the hole I put through her temple and all the blood spilling out across the floor. It's on my hands, sticky and red. Maggie and Carol are staring down the dead-end of walkers. It's our way out, we think. Only they look horrified, and when I look, too, I see why.

Paula.

She grunts and bleeds and laughs...

She's dying.

I step closer, cocking my gun at her.

"I'll do it," Carol rasps.

"You're good," the dying woman groans. " _Nervous little bird._ You were her. But not now, right? Me, too."

"I told you to run."

Paula gasps in pain and asks, "If you could do all this, what were you so afraid of?"

Carol walks towards her, until they're a yard between. Her breath is shaking...

"I was afraid of this."

Paula laughs, like she might pass out, and it looks like she will.

Only she was playing possum, too.

She lunges, throwing the gun out of Carol's hand and knocking her against the wall. It happens fast. Carol is stronger and pins her against the wall opposite, and Paula screams when a thumb is jammed into her bullet hole, and then they swing, and Paula falls, and an iron rod erupts right through her stomach.

"AAAAAHHHHHHH!"

We watch her get eaten alive; torn apart and devoured.

 _"Paula, we're approaching the perimeter. Are we a go? Do you copy?"_

It's the Saviors. They're close. No static. Paula is still screaming, and when she's quietened, gargling into the mouth eating her, drowning in her own blood, Carol pulls out her walkie-talkie. For a moment she purses her expression, preparing her voice for Paula's mimicry, and her whole body is trembling now.

She clicks the receiver. "Meet us on the Kill Floor."

* * *

We're waiting, done with preparations, hiding in the Machine Room next door to the Kill Floor with the empty gas canisters in front of us.

"Oliver." Carol, again, whispering it.

I ignore her.

She winces.

I grimace.

"I should never have brought you out here. It was a mistake – stupid," she is saying. " _I_ was stupid... I just – I spend _so_ much time trying not to think about... what's happened. But here you are, always, letting it eat you up."

I wipe my eyes, angry and afraid and sad and hurting.

Not wanting to be here.

With her or Maggie or anybody.

Not wanting to _be._

"I wanted to do this for you... let you go home," Carol says. "I wanted to let you have that. Just that. Finally... But I've just let what happened happen to us all over again."

 _The things we're most afraid of have already happened to us._

"I think I might've killed eighteen people." She's just talking now. Like she's hardly aware of it. Like me when I'm alone in my bedroom talking to all the ghosts that aren't really there. "Nineteen. I should've killed Donnie, too, in the woods. I had a clear shot. None of this would've happened if I had just killed him."

"Don't think about it," Maggie cuts her off.

Carol winces. "I can't _stop_."

I sniff, gritting my teeth angrily.

"We're almost done," Maggie says to us, stern.

Then comes the footsteps.

Maggie is fast at pushing the door a little so it's barely open a crack, and several figures rush past the room into the Kill Floor.

"Careful," one says.

Inside my pocket is the lighter Molly threw at me.

"The floor's slick," another.

I hand it to Carol.

"You sure this is it?"

 ** _Three..._**

"She said Kill Floor."

 ** _Two..._**

"Hey, this one's locked."

 ** _One..._**

We're out of the Machine Room and wrenching the Kill Floor door closed. It's big and metal and slides slowly, grinding, and it takes all our might to shut it before the Saviors can realise what's happening, because at the last moment, too late for them, Carol throws in her cigarette.

Fire.

They scream and pound on the door, and we're holding it shut. The searing heat inside burns up the metal against our backs. I smell it, burning flesh. I see it, smoke, it bleeds under the door and swirls past our ankles, all over again. Because Carol was right, all the way back in Grady; the smoke hasn't stopped following us.

 ** _It never will._**

We're leaving the slaughterhouse.

Growls distort and fray around my ears. I get my weapons back; retrieving them from the pack Molly left in the hallway. Every corner we turn, our guns aim down it first, and then we get to the exit, the big sign reading: _'MIND YOUR STEP'_ overhead. People are on the other side. We hear them speaking. We're probably going to die.

Not without a fight.

We brace ourselves.  
Guns up.  
Hearts frozen.  
Afraid.

So, so, afraid.

The door swings open.

 _Oh,_ I think blankly. _Oh, okay._

"Maggie," Glenn murmurs.

 _It's you,_ I'm letting my arm lower, and my Glock holsters itself, only I'm not fully here. _Cool,_ my mind goes on. _I think I'd like to die right about now though, thanks. **Yeah. Yeah, I...I'm cool with that, too.**_ Gabriel says something but all I do is nod at nothing. Glenn is holding his wife. Rosita is walking past with a rifle up, and I reach out to make sure she's real, and she is – I feel proof when she brushes past the back of my hand. They check inside.

 _I don't want to go back,_ I'm thinking. My feet shuffle. My shoulders come up. _I don't want to come back. I don't think I can._

"You okay?" Daryl is gripping Carol's shoulder, a finger and thumb pinched gently under her chin. "We got your trail. You start a fire?"

And she says, "Yeah..." like she's very far away.

And Daryl says, "Hey, you good?"

And she whispers back, "No."

And Daryl says, "Come here," and they're hugging.

 _I can't come back from this._

Abraham is holding a gun to Primo's temple. He's bound and bloody and staggering.

Something swallows me.

"They're dead," Maggie is saying. Her voice is all trembles. "They're all dead, the ones that took us. They're all dead."

"Hey, are you okay?" Glenn asks her breathlessly.

"I just..." She's crying. "I can't, anymore."

The thing that had swallowed me is tightening its grip, and when I realise it's Rick, I shudder and try to move my arms, relax my shoulders, hug him back, but something tightens, another thing, like some invisible demon clamping around every part of me.

"Oliver," Rick is saying, muttering it into the shell of my ear. I inhale sharply, like a gasp, only I'm just staring into nothing and I can't find where my body is anymore. "Oliver, it's okay now."

I hold onto him then, frantically, and all I want is for him to pick me up and carry me all the way back to Alexandria while I cling to him like a toddler. But he's pulling away and I'm staring at all of that nothing I can no longer focus on. His hands are on my jaw, gun and all, the barrel cold when it brushes my ear, but I think of his palms; coarse and callused.

"Oliver."

His eyes are looking right into me...

"Oliver."

 _Oh, yeah.  
Yes.  
I am Oliver.  
I'm him.  
I'm sure of it, I...I think._

"Oliver, look at me."

I am but not at his face, faces are scary they change too much what if he doesn't see me like me anymore?

At Abraham's urge, Rick is stepping away. He keeps glancing back at me every few seconds, until he stops and grimaces furiously at Primo, getting up close, nose to ear.

"Your friends are dead. No one's coming for ya. So you might as well talk."

"Let'm burn," Daryl growls.

Gabriel has taken my shoulder. When I flinch he very gently pulls me the last few steps outside of the slaughterhouse. The sun blinds me. Everything does. The cement. The trees. The air and the birds and the earth. Like I'm some monster burning under it all.

Fire crackles behind us from inside.

"I'm gonna ask you one last time, how'd you get the bike?" Rick asks the Savior.

"We found it," Primo answers shrilly, taking in the damage we've done.

"Like hell you did," Daryl hisses.

"We found it," he repeats, his voice high pitched now.

"Was Negan in that building last night or was he here?" Rick growls in his ear.

"Both," Primo answers, and some kind of haggard confidence comes over him, all of a sudden... "I'm Negan, _shithead._ "

 ** _This is a game to them._**

"There's a whole world of fun that we can talk about," the Savior says, "so let's have a ch–"

"–I'm sorry it had to come to this."

In the same second, Rick's gun cocks, fires, and then Primo is dead.

* * *

We're going home.

Not _home._

Just... home.

On the journey, I keep yacking into the trash can while Michonne eases the tape off of my amputation and tends to the cut on my shoulder-blade, and at some point Carol has taken my hand again, and it's bloody –her hand– with a deep cut across her palm.

I know why.

"I'm sorry," she breathes, and I tuck my forehead into the crook of her neck and cry. "I'm so sorry, Oliver."

 _Be kinder to yourself, Carol,_ I think, but can't say it, _the whole world, is already, so unkind._

* * *

Inside my bedroom under my sheets, I put my stereo on loud and hurt myself until I don't feel like me anymore. Between songs, I hear talking downstairs. Carl and Carol. He's telling her Rick wanted him to come and check on us, that Rick was going to come himself but Carl wanted to do it for him, and then they're both coming upstairs and I can hear them even with my music playing because they're right outside my door. Carol is thanking him for bringing breakfast and he's asking if he can see me, and she says he can, that he should, that I haven't left my room since I got back and that I'd probably appreciate it.

She's wrong.

When Carl comes into my bedroom I know I should say something but I don't say a word. I can't even look. I sit on my floor and stare at my arm cupped between my thighs and my chest so that only I can see all the marks, and it's easier looking at it than anything else, and I can hear his voice, but it stacks, in my head, like paperwork, piling higher and higher and I am not fast enough to read it all.

"How are you, Oliver?"

"You alright?"

"It's okay if you're not."

"I – I mean, we don't have to talk."

"I can just sit here, read, listen to music."

He stops talking when my hand shifts against my kneecap, like I had startled him. Maybe I did?

I can smell the fire, even now after all this time, feel its heat, taste its smoke, hear the crackles and the sizzles and the screams. I close my eyes and Paula's face is still inside of them. Crying. Donnie's and Molly's, too. And 'Chelle's. Their screams fill my ears, and with theirs a thousand more join...

"Oliver?"

His voice is so small.

"Oliver, talk to me."

When I look at him, I make him flinch.

 ** _Monster._**

My knuckle cracks, bawled so tight my nails cut into my palm, and every other joint in me locks shut. All I think is that I am going to burst, explode with all their screams, haunted. Carl is staring at me. I stare right back, and I hear his breath hitch, watch it, the swipe of sleeve when he wipes his eye and bandage.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

 _Yeah.  
Me, too._

And then he is gone.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _R.I.P. 2 My Youth_ by The Neighbourhood.

 **Preview: Oliver is struggling. He's not talking, he's skipping meals, he's spending all his time with Enid and refusing any help that is offered to him, and Carol is beginning to understand that there is only one thing that might be able to help him.**

As always,  
Happy reading.


	19. Twice as Far, Part 1: Imprehensive

**The Sorrowful Deity** Yep... poor boy.

 **RHatch89** thank you ^.^

 **Blood on my Machete** Hahaha, no, I don't think Paula was trying to creep on him. I think she called him handsome more to mock him and what her daughter would have said about him, but ended up just upsetting herself because, well, feelings and such. That salt thing was genius, thank you for allowing me to use it in the future x)

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** thankyouthankyouthankyou ^o^

 **Random Fandom Kid** I think he would greatly appreciate the bagels and peppermints.

 **Anna** Hello! How are you!? Thank you.

 **The Flash Fanatic** Aww thank youu!

 **Noisy Sunday** Yeah, ah, I'm sorry it's so shitty right now! Everybody is just in a bad funk and aghhhh And yes, LOTS of Carol and Oliver to come. I love them too. And gosh that means so much thank you infinitely. I adore you! Thank you aughhhh

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _I can't take them on my own, my own  
Pa, I'm not the one you know, you know  
I have killed a man and all I know  
Is I am on the run and go_

 _Don't wanna call you in the night-time  
Don't wanna give you all my pieces  
Don't wanna hand you all my trouble  
Don't wanna give you all my demons  
You'll have to watch me struggle  
From several rooms away  
But tonight I'll need you to stay..._

It's been only two days since the slaughterhouse, but it feels longer.

Days have blurred. Nights, too. Though, early mornings are routine: I'll wake up, I'll jerk off, then I'll make my bed, and then I'll go find Carol on Tobin's porch. She'll be smoking alone, and I'll sit with her on the swing-seat and listen to it creak again and again while she pushes us with her toe and rolls her rosary beads between her fingers, and I'll read a book or write bad lyrics, ignoring her telling me to worry about second hand smoke until she either snubs the cigarette out herself or gives up trying. Sometimes Tobin comes out and says goodbye to her before he goes to work, and then they'll kiss, and I'll leave.

Yesterday, after sitting with Carol on Tobin's porch, I went back to the second house. It wasn't noon yet, and I didn't want to go to school so I put music on and sat with Bean in my bedroom and did mirror therapy on my own. I've discovered this thing with mirrors. I'll look at myself inside it and say my name.

"Oliver Fabiano De Luca."

And yesterday it helped me believe it.

"Oliver Fabiano De Luca."

"Oliver Fabiano De Luca."

"Oliver Fabiano De Luca."

Only then it got to this place in my head where I didn't know if I believed it anymore. I thought it would take longer for that to happen but it was seconds, and things started to blur. My eyes were open but I couldn't see, and my heart got too fast, and no matter how much I tried I couldn't find me anymore. It scared me. Scared me so bad I pinched until I could breathe and feel and see again. Only I still couldn't. Not really. But I'd promised Enid I would meet her at the pantry (left her a note when I left her bedroom before she woke up) so I went to find her, and she made us a plate of food even though I didn't eat my half, and when she asked how I was, I didn't tell her about the panic attack because I still hadn't talked to anybody except myself and my ghosts, so, instead of talking, we built a fort in her bed sheets upstairs, like kids do; hiding inside and holding them up with our heads and hands, our backs to the wall and the sun light coming in through the fabric so that everything inside glowed pink and purple and blue.

I kissed her.

And, after a second, she kissed me, too.

Kissing like Enid and I kiss, again. Because we'd done this the night before, too, like the first time; kissed until we fell asleep, and it helped. Only, this time, it wasn't night yet, and we had more time. More time and more thoughts and more reason not to stop. So I settled myself down between her legs and kissed her like that, too, and after a while, we were kissing and touching and moving a lot differently and in ways we'd never thought of before, wrapped around each other inside the sheets, and for this strange and intense moment I thought that maybe she'd decided she wanted me, that maybe I'd decided I wanted her, too, really really, because she let me pull off her shorts and unzip my jeans, and inside her jewellery box was a little square wrapper that she said I should take care of, and we touched and we took and we did not love, and then, when we were already doing it, she decided she didn't want to anymore.

"Oliver..."

I looked past her eyes, outside of myself, like some shell who's occupant had gotten lost a long time ago, watching from the side-lines while the half-dressed boy and girl screwed inside one another's strange and intimate company, and it didn't feel bad or good or anything, it just... _felt_.

"...stop please."

She'd only whispered it, but the words rang in my ears deep and brutal, so I stopped immediately and moved away from her. We sat back against the wall and collected ourselves, buttoning up and tugging down the clothes we'd removed from each other. It was awkward and uncomfortable and embarrassing and upsetting, and Enid started crying really hard. I tried to ignore it, but I did, too.

"I was thinking about Ron," she told me when she could stop. Her voice was distant and throaty and we were both still breathing heavily. "He – he used to kiss me like that."

The sheet puffed away from my nose when I exhaled and pulled up close when I inhaled, and I wiped the sweat away from my hairline. She looked at me like she thought I would finally say something, but I didn't.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. She shook her head and wiped her eyes. "I shouldn't talk about him. I know you hate him."

It wasn't true. I didn't hate Ron. I never have. Not even when he shot Carl. Not even when he attacked him a day before that. Angry, yes, but never hateful. The truth is I miss Ron like crazy. I miss Sam. I miss Jessie and I miss Mikey and I miss Nell. But it was easier not to tell her that. It was easier not to tell anybody. It was easier to keep my mouth shut and to fester in the loss so that the truth wouldn't hurt them anymore.

But they are all still hurting.

"Were you... thinking about Ca – ?"

She stopped talking when I shook my head. The thing was, I wasn't thinking about anybody, and that was the truth and it hurt like hell. I thought it _wasn't_ supposed to hurt anymore, when you realise you're over someone. I didn't think it would _still hurt._ But it did. God, it did. It hurt like I wasn't over anything at all. When I stayed silent, holding my breath until the lump in my throat went away, Enid wiped her eyes and looked away to cry without me seeing it, and still, I stared blankly at the sheets in front of me.

"Then why are you so sad?"

I had no answer. I didn't even know. In that moment I wasn't even sure I was sad. I was just numb. Empty. That great crack now run dry, only bones and craggy rock, like some disappointing volcano.

 _Maybe I'll erupt soon,_ I keep thinking. _Like Pompeii._

 ** _You are.  
Just like it.  
Burning whole families along with you._**

"I think we shouldn't do this anymore," Enid told me softly. "I don't want to. I think it makes us feel sadder. Makes us hurt more."

She looked at her hands and tangled her fingers like a cradle, cupping something I couldn't see inside, something that wasn't even there.

"Sometimes, hurting just... hurts," she explained. "It doesn't make you learn anything. It doesn't make you a better person, or, develop character or anything like that. It just... hurts like hell."

I wanted to take her hand. I wanted to be that something that was there, cupped in her palm cradle, but I kept very still, and for the rest of the day we spent it sitting in her bedroom inside her sheets, reading and listening to music and doing nothing at all, miserable and quiet and lost in our own heads together. When it got to the evening, I went back to mine alone with that dark cloud hovering over my head. Carol came back a few hours after me –I didn't ask where she was. We made supper together, only she didn't eat with me. She told me she was going to eat with Tobin and to not go to bed too late. So then I was alone. I tried to finish my supper, and I tried to go to bed on time, read, maybe, if I couldn't sleep right away, but I threw up into the toilet and spent the rest of the night with my demons.

Today, after sitting with Carol on Tobin's porch, I left and went to my room. It wasn't noon yet, and I didn't want to go to school so I put music on and sat with Bean in my bedroom and did mirror therapy on my own. I looked at myself inside the mirror and said my name.

"Oliver Fabiano De Luca."

And it helped me believe it.

"Oliver Fabiano De Luca."

"Oliver Fabiano De Luca."

"Oliver Fabiano De Luca."

But only for a time.

So I went back to that place in my head where I didn't believe it anymore, and everything blurred again. But this time, I didn't try to find myself. I didn't get as scared. I just pinched until I heard Carol coming back from Tobin's. She was getting more cigarettes because she'd given her last one to Daryl. I knew this because I had turned off my music when I heard the door and she was talking while she walked up the staircase. But she stopped and got real quiet when she heard me move across the landing into the bathroom.

"Oliver?"

I was going to shower, avoid talking to her so that she didn't have to see me like this; blank and bruised and shaking and far away from myself. Not quite back yet. I'd gone farther this time. The skin was broken over small streaked parts of my stomach and shoulder.

"Oliver..."

I heard her hand press against the door and it made me flinch and cover my ears.

"Open the door, please."

I needed to shower. I needed to come back a little. I needed her to go away so I could focus, so I shut my eyes and started undressing, only then she started banging on the door. It made me startle, and I lost my footing and tried to catch myself by grabbing at the edge of the towel rack, but I felt the sharp and the catch and the jerk, and when I looked at my palm I saw the blood swell and trickle and spill. Carol heard the choke in my breath, and then she was suddenly shouting, threatening to shoot the lock, begging me to open up, so I unlocked the door.

It was awful.

Not so much because blood dripped from my elbow and more swelled on my shoulder and abdomen, or that the rest of me was so bruised that I looked like I'd been painted on, but because she looked so afraid. I thought she would fuss, grab some tissue and help me clean up and spend the rest of the morning keeping an eye on me, like usual, but she screamed at me.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?"

I tried to explain that I didn't mean to, not the cut, _notthecutnotthecutnotthecutnotthecut,_ but she didn't let me get the words out.

"YOU'RE RUINING YOURSELF! STOP! _STOP IT_!"

I turned away and held my amp and hand against my cheeks, holding my head in one piece. Her hands were in her hair and she paced by the door.

"I can't do this," she was saying. "I can't take how afraid I am for you."

I was crying too hard so I wiped my eyes and felt warm wet smear across my face.

"I can't _STOP_!" she screamed. "I CAN'T STOP CARING ABOUT YOU!"

And then she just stopped. And she cried. And I was so angry that I couldn't do anything but glare at her. I wanted to take her hand. I wanted to be that something that was there for her, too, but I couldn't. Every breath I took and held and swallowed felt like a whole new wave of lava, and Carol was stood right in front of it, watching the flame and the smoke and the ash, bracing for it, like always.

"Go to Denise."

She sounded so terrified.

" _Now._ "

So I did.

I am, now.

Denise is stitching my hand and I'm watching that happen. The wound is bloody and deep and raw. The edge of the towel rack cut me with one jagged slice from my thumb to the ball of my palm, parallel to the scar from all those years ago on Independence Day with Penelope. If I stretch my hand open the two parts of skin pull apart; wide, like a long, thin, messy mouth across my hand like in that strange, foreign, horror comic I once r–

 ** _AAAHHHH!_**

I flinch.

"Sorry," Denise apologises, and keeps stitching when I relax again, carefully awkwardly quietly. "You haven't been coming to therapy since you got back."

I don't reply, just look at her hands and grit my teeth.

"Was it an accident?"

I nod stiffly. She doesn't believe me, and because of this a small part of my heart breaks.

"I believe you. Swear," she says then. "I just, want to make sure."

I look away guiltily. She keeps concentrating, her jaw set firmly and squarely. She's wearing an unzipped hoodie, a blue top under it, some jeans and sneakers. Her hair is up in a pony tail and there's a small smudge on the corner of her glasses. I wince again, and a second later she's finished, wrapping my hand up in a loose bandage. When she's done, I put my hand in my hoodie pocket and keep it there.

"Your bruises are still warm," she tells me. "They from this morning?"

I nod, ashamed and trying not to be. All the time Denise tells me that people cope in a lot of different ways. They prey or they talk or they find a way to laugh at themselves. They write or they cook or they paint or they exercise, and sometimes they take it out on themselves; smoke or bruise or drink or eat too much at once or not enough, and that this –the bruising and the _everything else–_ is just the way _I_ cope. She doesn't condone it, but she doesn't condemn it either. She knows that I do it, now, and that one day I might not anymore. She'll say, _"And until then, the most important thing is that you know you still have people who love you. And you do. You know that, don't you?"_

I do know this.

Of course I do.

It's just easy to forget when you can't remember the last time somebody actually said it to you.

"Did you do any breathing exercises?" she asks.

I shake my head. She gives me a small blue towel. It's wet. When she gestures to my face I use the towel to wipe it. Red comes off onto the fabric.

"Couldn't or you wouldn't?" Denise asks then. "The exercises."

I shrug.

"Not up for talking today, huh?"

Again, shrug.

"Okay," she says. "NTD."

 _NTD_ , between Denise and I, means _No Talk Day,_ or, _Not Talking Day_. She can never decide which and seeing as she's the only one talking when she is deciding, she's so indecisive that it goes back and forth depending on what mood she's in, but I think she confuses herself over it just to make me laugh as much as genuinely not remembering properly. It's dorky and ridiculous and I really do love her stupidly for it.

I crack this small dumb smirk that makes her look far too satisfied.

Denise steps over to the bookshelf and pulls down a paper-back. She hands it to me with a tight _Denisey_ grin –the kind where she's sort of scrunching her nose and eyes, too. "Here," she says. "Want you to read this. It's your homework."

 _Wizard of Oz_

I look up to her with the kind of expression similar to Carl's that one time Abraham called him a pirate. He called me a pirate, too, and made a pale muscular hook with his finger, and while I walked away my own middle finger came up in his general direction over my shoulder.

"It's for kids, I know, but it's also not," she says. Her eyebrows come up when mine travel further down. "It's good. Promise."

Her eyes narrow then.

"Wait, have you already read it?"

Even though I don't respond, Denise suddenly looks like she isn't sure if she wants to hug me or sigh dramatically. She doesn't do either. Instead she grins and laughs and pinches her glasses and runs her hand over her pony-tail.

"Well, I want you to read it again. But not all at once. As good as staying inside reading all day sounds, I'd like you to go outside for a while. You don't have to spend time with anybody if you don't want to, but, just, go outside, I don't know, look at trees, bird watch."

She ignores the protest in my expression and starts packing a rucksack, and when she sees the contempt on my face change to curiosity she tells me she's hoping to go on a Run with Daryl and Rosita today. I must look doubtful, because Denise sighs.

"Look I know I've never been on a Run before but I think I'm ready. I _know_ I am."

"– I was thinkin' of making my beef jerky stroganoff," Spenser says from outside.

"I'm good, thanks," Rosita says indifferently. They're coming to the door. Denise is ending our one-sided conversation and collecting her things. Rosita and Spenser keep talking for a moment and I'm not really listening until Rosita, very impatiently, says, " _What_?"

"What are we doing?" Spencer asks softly. "Just tell me. It's good, either way. Really is."

Denise and I exchange a look and both our bottom lips stretch awkwardly.

" _Okay,_ " Rosita says moodily.

"' _Okay'_ , is what we're doing?" he asks.

"We'll do dinner, _okay_?"

"Alright. See you then."

"Okay..." Rosita turns, freezes, because Denise has opened the door and is stood on the porch.

"We didn't hear you guys," the doctor lies, very obviously, holding a torn out page from a road map. She looks down at it. I realise that my cover was blown (I may have tried to duck behind the wall when the door opened) so I step aside and show myself better, flapping my arms once at the elbows and keeping their ends in my hoodie pocket, like lob-sided awkward wings, thinking, _ugh, I should probably leave..._

"Good," Rosita says to us nonchalantly. "Today's lesson'll be in the cul-de-sac."

Every other day, Rosita teaches weapons defence classes. I go to them sometimes. Gabriel, too. And Eugene –who's started wearing his hair in a ponytail lately. Though, Eugene won't be going to defence class today. On my way here I'd seen him and Abraham heading off. Dry Run. Said they're checking out some warehouse west of Alexandria. I'm not sure what for, I mean, Eugene was talking to Abraham about it but something like washing the dishes can sound like rocket science out of his mouth, so I just sort of walked away without asking.

"Actually," Denise asks, "can we do something else?"

* * *

After a _short_ debate, Denise convinced Daryl and Rosita to accompany her to a small town mall just north of Springfield to get medical supplies from some apothecary that she thinks nobody would've looked in. While this talk went on, I've been inside the second house with Carol. Daryl's been using the tools in our garage to fix up his bike outside on the curb. I hadn't even noticed he'd gotten it back until I'd left to go the infirmary earlier. Carol has made breakfast; home-made banana bread with butter from the haul from Hilltop.

My stomach growls hungrily.

I haven't eaten since yesterday and I wasted that in the toilet. When she holds out a slice on a plate, I ignore it and make my way to the staircase, only she reaches out and gently takes my elbow.

"Won't you have it now?" she asks – asks my hand. The bandage has a small line of red. I hide it back inside my hoodie quickly. "Oliver?"

I don't even know if she's expecting me to reply anymore. She says my name but she doesn't _say my name._ She hasn't in a long time. She says it in that way, like she isn't sure I _am_ anymore, or like she isn't sure she _can_.

"Oliver, I–"

I don't know what it is, but something about the way I look at her makes her stop talking. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I don't know how to help her. So I don't do anything at all.

"The panic attack," she says first, listing off: "The praying."

She hides her lips inside her mouth and shakes her head.

"It wasn't real. I-I don't think."

I grit my teeth. I knew this. Of course I did. But hearing it is like another cigarette on my tongue.

"But I was afraid," she tells me. "I needed to keep you and Maggie alive. That's all that mattered. That why I couldn't say you were mine... Paula would've used it against us. If you were Rick's it made keeping you alive the most important thing they had. If you were mine they would've killed you and I would've..."

Her voice cracks terribly then. It makes her grimace, like she's angry. I look at the floor and nod this tiny bit before I turn to go upstairs. But again, Carol stops me, tugging the hem of my hoodie.

"Oliver, nothing was real. I wasn't. But yesterday I couldn't lie, not about you. If I'd made you a lie, too, it would've killed me. You had to be real. You have to be."

Carol sounds very sad when she tells me all this. She isn't crying, but her voice is so broken and strained, like it's desperate, like she's hanging from a tall burning building. But it makes my eyes wet. Makes me force the sad away. It makes me angry, too, but worst of all it makes me confused because none if it makes any sense.

 _I don't want you to hurt because of me,_ I am too afraid to tell her. _I don't want you to keep trying if it makes you so sad._

"I made you a promise," she says finally. "I talked to Rick. We're going to Lorton. You and me. Today."

A blink. That's all I have.

"Go get your things."

* * *

Carol, Bean and I are in the _Astoundingly Ugly_ car, driving west. Actually, I am driving. Carol said I could so I did, and sure, I like driving, but recent sight-related discoveries have brought me to the self-awareness that doing so might actually be a very bad idea. Only it's too late for me to come up with an excuse now.

 ** _Just don't think about how you're partially blind...  
_** _Great. Thanks.  
 **Hey, you're the asshole here.**_

Carol and I left the same time Daryl, Denise and Rosita did. They're taking the same route, only they're going to split off and go north when we get to Interstate 95; the opposite way as us, so until then we've decided to drive together in two separate vehicles. Carol and I didn't tell a lot of people we were going. Some already knew, like Rick and Maggie and Glenn. So we just packed our things into the _Astoundingly Ugly_ car and left Alexandria Safe Zone. Enid's going to be upset that I didn't say goodbye, but I left her a note on my bedside table for when she'll come to find me:

 _'Carol and I are going to Lorton.  
Don't worry, I know...  
just survive somehow.  
– OdL'_

I don't know how Carl will feel but then again we've hardly said a word to each other in days. I haven't had the courage to speak to him. I'll stick with Enid or hide in my room, and there was that awkward moment yesterday when we both left our houses at the same time in the evening. I was letting Bean out to crap and Carl was taking Judith on a walk. He said hi, and I said nothing, and then I back-stepped all the way back inside the second house into the dining room to plant my ass on the bureau and stay there for half an hour until I had the balls to take Bean outside again.

We're not far from Interstate 95 now. Once we get there, just outside of Springfield, the others will go north and Carol and I will go south, all the way to Lorton. There shouldn't be many walkers on the roads after the herd seven months ago, since, together, Alexandria had effectively wiped out the majority of walkers in our part of the County, and if there are any, Carol says they'll just be stragglers. So far we've only seen three walkers, and they were all so emaciated they could hardly stand up.

If we're quick, we can get there before noon...

I'm not really sure what I'm feeling, but I know there's a lot of it.

 ** _Does blind have a feeling?  
_** _I'm not blind!_

It's been raining. There are still droplets on the windows even though it stopped a few hours ago while I sat with Carol on Tobin's porch. She's smoking again now, holding it close to the window and blowing the smoke outside. I can still smell it. It doesn't make me cough anymore though. I think I'm just used to it. Carol used to feel guilty but now she either doesn't or she just acts like she doesn't. I can't tell which I'd prefer.

I hit the clutch and quickly change into third gear.

"I can do that for you," she tells me.

I glance at her, then back at the road, shrugging as I bare left. I'm about to reach over and change up to fourth, but Carol is still watching me so I sigh, then put up four fingers against the steering wheel, press the clutch, and she changes gear for me. The truck ahead grinds and groans and squelches loudly every few moments. It sounds like it's going to fall apart. Carol keeps grimacing at them, and Denise and Rosita will look over at Daryl's rough work at the stick shift, looking disapproving and annoyed, and he'll look back at them, glaring like there's an equal amount of chance that he's amused or very very annoyed, but it's always hard to tell with him, especially when, for one, you're watching him from a whole car behind, and two, you have poor eye sight, and three, you're driving and trying to focus on ten different and equally life-threatening things at once.

Again, the truck ahead gargles unhappily.

 ** _There's me thinking the Astoundingly Ugly car was bad._**

It only just occurs to me that I'm better at driving stick shift than Daryl Dixon. It also only just occurs to me that I have no idea what to do with this information. I just know that it's probably something I'd like to put on my resume.

I find that with every mile closer in the _Astoundingly Ugly_ car, the more and more apprehensive I become. No, not exactly apprehensive. Kind of more impatient really. But, that isn't right either. _Imprehensive?_ Yeah, imprehensive.

We've been driving something over ten minutes, almost to Interstate 95 – just over half way to Lorton. I'm aware of the big mass of blurry brown and green in the middle of the road for a moment, unable to quite make it out clearly, so I'm just waiting, hoping it'll go away, maybe clear into something non-existent or easy to pass. It isn't until Carol curses under her breath that I finally admit defeat and accept that it is there. A big ass fallen tree, right across the road...

 _Hot damn.  
 **Who the hell're you? Denise?!**_

I park up behind them. Carol and I both get out, I hold my hand up to Bean for him to stay and he makes a weird, " _Roffle,"_ noise at me in quiet protest, but obeys, sitting in the centre back seat with his tongue hung over his mouth and his tail flapping repetitively against the seat. The area is quaint, a few houses a little way behind us, tall banks either side of the road and the train tracks on the other side of the tree ahead.

I shiver.

"Stay put," Carol tells me, and while she, Daryl and Rosita go take a look around, I go back to the car, grabbing Bean, and then heading to the truck in front.

Denise startles when I pull the door open. "Jeeze!" she gasps, holding her chest.

I glance at her apologetically and take a careful seat beside her in the driver's seat. She's in the middle seat, still holding her heart. The thing with being quiet is that you sneak up on people a lot, I realise. Especially jittery people like Denise, where, out here, her careful confidence is slightly more outweighed by her mesmerising awkwardness.

Bean climbs on Denise's other side, sitting in the passenger seat, panting.

"Thought I heard Carol ask you to stay put," she tells me, cocking an eyebrow. When I blush she smirks. "I'm starting to take your fondness of me personally."

I gently elbow her in the arm to get her to shut up, embarrassed, and when she stops grinning like a child, she is kind enough to let it go, so we sit in quiet for a little while, watching the others. Rosita dispatches a walker trapped under the tree. The tree, I realise, had rotted out, so at least it didn't fall from people.

My hand is stinging. Not too bad. But bad enough that I haven't been able to think about much else, especially while driving. I carefully lift up the bandage and hold it up in front of me, squinting, holding it closer.

"Enid told me about your eyes," Denise says then, bobbing her head as she talks. "While you were out, day before day before last."

My jaw grinds uncomfortably. I put my hand down, covering it with my sleeve and stuffing it in my pocket.

"Don't worry, I won't say anything," she explains. "Patient confidentiality."

Again, I grit my teeth.

"The sign over there," she points. "Can you read what it says?"

I look, nod. The sign reads:

 _'RAILROAD CROSSING – STOP, LOOK, LISTEN'_

"Oh," she mumbles, "right. NTD."

I purse my lips. In truth I hadn't even realised she wanted me to say anything aloud. She pinches the rim of her glasses, adjusting them only to put them in exactly the same place, like the way she strokes her hand over her pony tail, like she's just making sure it's there.

"Good luck, by the way. You deserve this."

I pull at my beanie, squinting. It's harder for her to read my expression if I squint.

"Here," she says, and I look over to see her removing her glasses. "Try mine. I'm no eye doctor but at least I might be able to help figure out how bad your sight really is."

I try them on, and the whole world turns to fuzz.

"Is it clearer?" she asks, because my eyes are wide.

I shake my head.

"Okay, that's good," she tells me, taking them back and replacing them. "That means your eyes aren't as bad as mine. I'd be surprised if they were, my eyesight is so bad I'm pretty much blind without them."

I'm not really sure if I should be relieved or sympathetic.

Denise smirks. "I want you to try on every pair of glasses you find. No matter how goofy or lame they look. This is one of your most important senses and I am this close to having to tell somebody. If you can't see, you're putting your life and other people's lives at risk, especially out here."

I'm chewing my thumb, effectively reprimanded because my heart is beating a little faster. Bean is panting, watching Rosita head back over to us.

"Deal?"

Quickly, I shake her hand.

Rosita opens Denise's door. She only startles a little this time.

"Come on," Rosita says, "it's clear."

"What did you find?" Denise asks.

"Bottles of booze. Any takers?"

"No thanks," Denise says.

"For later. I'm not bringing these to the pantry."

"I'm good," she insists. "They were kind of my parents' thing. Which is why they aren't mine."

Daryl is letting Bean and I out the other side, then grabbing some of his things.

"That truck ain't gonna make it past this tree," he says. "Carol, what're you gonna do?"

"We only have the fuel for there and back, how we planned, no de-tours," she says. "Oliver and I'll go back home."

I can't stop myself before I spin around to her.

"Oliver," she protests. "Lorton's another six miles. It'll take two hours to walk there."

I know she's right. God, I know. I know. So I swallow, dip my head, nod, then head back to the car. She follows me, and for a moment she sits beside me in the driver's seat staring at the tree in front of us. Rosita, Daryl and Denise are still watching us. I hand Carol the key I'd taken out, and she pauses for a long moment before finally sighing very sharply, and then she curses –I very carefully do not move or breathe or anything because _oh man oh man oh man–_ and then she's getting out of the car and grabbing her things from the back. She lets Bean out, and they both head towards the tracks.

To say I'm baffled is an understatement, so I open the door and lean out of it, squinting after her...

"Come on!" she calls to me. "We're burning daylight."

"Y'sure?" Daryl asks her.

Carol is nodding, nodding and nodding and nodding. I'm jogging after her, my backpack hitting my spine and my flannel shirt balled up in my hand. I stuff it in my backpack when I get to her. The long sleeve shirt I've got on has had the right sleeve cut and sewn shut to cater for my amp. I don't know who did it. I just found it like that one morning. It's better than having to tie a scruffy not at the end instead.

"Two hours there, two hours inside, then another two hours back here. We'll be home before sundown."

Daryl squints at her, then me, and I'm watching them both, ready to accept whatever decision that comes about from this.

"You sure?" he asks her one last time.

"Yeah. Six hours."

He's nodding. "Alright, us too. We'll wait here for you to get back. Anything goes wrong you wait there. We'll come get you."

She nods, "Alright."

That imprehensive feeling comes back like getting hit by a train. Denise is hugging me, telling me to keep safe, and then Rosita is hugging me, too, and then Daryl is gently slapping my shoulder once and telling me very seriously to look after my _"Ol' lady."_

"Come on, let's walk," Daryl commands to his party, on the other side of the tree now.

"Hold up," Denise says. "Looks like a straight shot if we follow the tracks."

"No. No tracks. We'll take the road."

"That's twice as far."

"Go whichever way you like. I ain't takin' no tracks."

"We should stick together..."

They're leaving, and because Daryl is Daryl and Rosita is Rosita, the former takes the road and the latter takes the tracks. Denise, torn, follows Daryl to the road.

Thunder crunches overhead.

When I look at Carol I can see how much she's wondering she's going to regret this, and to help her feel better I take her hand and squeeze it quickly, then let go.

"What do you pick?" she asks me, squinting. There's a rainbow behind her, rain in the far distance, going away. "Tracks or road?"

Daryl is Daryl and Rosita is Rosita, and because I am Oliver, I chose the road, because, _No. No more tracks._

* * *

Imprehensive slowly churns over to full blown anxiety when the first hour rolls over. The interstate is long and seemingly empty of bodies, but on the way out of the nearest towns or cities, cars are clogging every corner of the road, so Carol, Bean and I keep to the other empty sides, changing over when necessary. It's not too hot but I'm sweating through my long sleeve T-shirt. So is Carol, I realise, when dark circles grow around her neck and armpits and under her rucksack.

My breath is shallow and my mind is on alert when we turn off the interstate into Lorton, arriving before we thought, though we still have a half hour walk through the town to home. We take footpaths and back alleys to avoid open streets. Carol worries about getting cornered by walkers but I just shake my head reassuringly, and as we walk I point to all the escape routes I know like the back of my hand.

"Are they a way back to the road?"

I nod, thinking, _I used to use them to run away from bullies._

School isn't far away if we take the path to the right, but we go left. Bean protests, sitting in the middle of the path. Because the other way is his home. Carol calls after him but he plants himself firm in the dirt. There is this moment then. This single moment. I almost miss it. But it's the moment Bean decides for the first time in his life to choose me over Nell. It isn't a happy moment, or even a sad one. Just...

One moment.

We go left.

 _Ten minutes._

So, ten minutes later, Carol, Bean and I are crossing over Lorton Road and turning left into a suburb. _My_ suburb. Empty and barren and deserted, not even walkers have stuck around here. We go past the play park –it's the same park Pat took me to with Dad's cigarettes– and Carol asks which way and I point to the street I grew up on. It pulls me towards it like a magnet, and then a few moments later I'm stopping at the foot of a small overgrown lawn. Ravens caw from the rooftops, and a completely new feeling comes over me now all together. Like I've just gotten to the next level of a difficult video-game. It turns the breath in my throat to snow, my heartbeat to sludge, my stomach to pulp, and I only have one name for it...

Home.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _The Run and Go_ by Twenty One Pilots.

Kinda glad that Enid and Oliver's thing ended with him being told no and listening to it. And I like writing how people like Enid and Carol and Denise can still get so much conversation out of Oliver even though he doesn't say a word.

Self promo: _Finished the AU._

Thanks, **TheDarkerSide123** , for explaining the difference between emancipated and emaciated.

As always,  
Happy reading.


	20. Twice as Far, Part 2: Mom and Dad

**The Sorrowful Deity** Yep, dude is numb af at the moment. He needs a hug and blankets.

 **RHatch89** Thank you.

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** Yes. Little better. Lot bad. It's okay. I am really bad on PMs lately, too. Hope you're okay ^.^

 **Blood on my Machete** Puppy!Daryl has been a mental image that has existed in my head for the last week now, so thanks for that -_- xD Also, haha, yes, sometimes I put things in this that have no purpose at all and Animal Farm is a very good example #IamabadwriterIknow xD Also, I hope you're feeling better!

 **natsumo** I must as I am a writer ^.^ it is how I don't starve

 **TheDarkerSide123** you are a whale penis oops I spelled dork wrong my baaaad I am still not using commas

* * *

 **! 100** **th** **!  
! Chapter !  
! Special !**

* * *

 _ **A/N =**_ _**Stolen**_ _ **is a great book**_ _ **and I'm very inspired so this whole chapter will be in second person past tense from Carol's point of view. Thanks if you keep reading.**_

 _P.s. Alright, I'm not going to lie, when I wrote this I drank a LOT of caffeine that day; lattes, cappuccinos, mochas, flat whites (I work in a coffee shop and I don't usually drink caffeine so this turned me into another species o.O) and I was up ALL NIGHT compulsively changing the whole thing into Carol's POV. I did not sleep. I may or may not have fallen asleep the next day on shift cleaning a table leg. And I regret nothing. This chapter consumed me. And I love it unwholesomely._

* * *

 _Momma, I know  
That you're tired of being alone  
Dad, I know you're trying  
To fight when you feel like flying_

 _But if you love me  
Don't let go_

 _Hold  
Hold on  
Hold on to me  
'Cause I'm a little unsteady  
A little unsteady..._

* * *

 **~The letter Carol Never Sent~**

* * *

Oliver.

Your pain is your bravery and your regret is your innocence. You travel with the world balanced on the top of your head and it is nothing less than a halo.

But all you see are horns.

"Take your time," I whispered to you, "please."

You twitched.

I saw it in your fingertips.

But you were on a mission. I knew it the moment you'd sat down in the driver's seat –like a hound dog; your nose set and pointed in the direction you needed to go...

You are so peculiar.

So special.

So _good._

You don't even know it.

If I told you, you wouldn't even believe me.

You walked across the lawn. The grass was overgrown and you felt every blade across your palm and between your fingers. When you stopped at the front door it was like you were stepping through a portal. Another dimension. A parallel universe exactly like our own, only this was home, to you, for the first time. I didn't want to touch anything, else something might change drastically as consequence.

Like the butterfly effect.

It was you, Oliver.

You were the butterfly.

... and I could not touch you.

Your home was small and suburban, made of wood panel walls and double glazed windows. A painted dark blue door; chipped and cracking. Weeds grew up and into the cracks. There was a parking space outside and a side-walk running past the front, a small shrub that grew blue bells and wild garlic in spring and summer –I remember you telling me that once.

It was the kind of house I could see you growing up happily in.

I wish you had.

How I do.

A tall wooden fence ran all the way around the back and there were other colonial houses in the background, surrounding us, filling up the streets and land. Flower pots hung overhead either side of the door. Forget Me Nots –you said. Your mother's favourites. You said she liked the colour. You said it made her think of the space behind her eyes.

Peculiar.

Special.

 _Good._

You still have that piece of her inside of you, huh?

Only now they were dead, forgotten anyway, and the windows were blocked out with dark brown and blue blankets.

You crouched.

Under the welcome mat, a small hoard of spiders scurried out away from the sun.

Bean bit at them.

I stepped back.

You shuddered violently.

Buried in the dust was a small rusty key and you picked it out carefully. When the door unlocked you shuddered again at the noise you grew up with. Again, I whispered, "Take your time, please."

You did.

It took you so long.

When you moved, you did so silently and smoothly. I believe you do not give yourself enough credit for how quiet and graceful you can move sometimes.

Like dancing.

Only you were heavy.

With them.

They were on your shoulders.

Haunting you.

We were in the hallway and you shut the front door behind us. It must have been exactly how you and your brother had left it. It was messy, but in such a strange way. I could tell it had been lived in but I could also see the efforts you made to keep it as tidy as you could. The bureau drew your attention first. On it were three objects. First; a small Newton's cradle. Second; a vase, with flowers so rotten they'd melted into the glass. And the third; a photo frame. Inside was a photograph of you and your brother. He looked young. Three, maybe. He was propped on a bed with you in his arms, smiling so proudly with a large hand rested on his shoulder –your father's, I suppose. Two of Patrick's front teeth were missing and his ears were too big for his head, and you? You were so small. Fast asleep. Only a few hours old, I knew, because you still had the hospital tag around your wrist.

 _de luca, oliver... 09-30-1996  
21.4inches... 6pounds_

I looked at that same wrist now. It was missing a hand, and under your sleeve I knew scratches and bruises littered all the way up and down your skin...

My heart broke, Oliver.

Inside the living room, two beds were set up. One on the floor and the other on the couch. I didn't have to ask to know your bed was on the floor. The radio by the TV was still switched on, even though the batteries had died a long time ago. You were so nervous. Even in your own home, you looked more out of place than ever, like you didn't think you were allowed to be here anymore. Not welcome.

That broke my heart, too.

I drew my knife and led us through the archway into the dining room. On the table, there was a strange stain, like it had been singed. You ran your hand over it, the memory you did not share running through your eyes.

Those coffee eyes.

For a second, they shimmered.

I almost missed it.

In here, too, a thick Captain America blanket was nailed up over the window as cover. In the corner of the room was a small, folded, pile of clothes. Mould had consumed it. Even Bean turned his nose up. Around the room, dirt and stains were smeared on the floor and walls. Mucky hands and clumsy heels. No, wait, I remember you telling me something, once. In the beginning, wasn't it? Pat had just gotten back from sneaking off to the Library early in the morning. He was so proud of himself for doing it by himself. He barged back in with the armful of maps and survival books, only he'd left the front door open, so, while you were sorting through the books in the kitchen, you didn't notice the stray walker that had wondered inside after him. You both fought it off in here with the sharp end of an umbrella and a frying pan.

Jesus.

You boys.

Quietly, I asked you to take out your knife, and you hesitated, but did as you were told. Your palm was white, gripped around the taped thermoplastic. We walked through. I liked your kitchen, in the grand scheme of things. I don't know why it was still surprising me how untouched your home was. But I suppose this part of Virginia was pretty untouched after the evacuation. Wood counters ran around the room. The fridge, stove, washing machine and dishwasher were all the same off white colour. There were two other doors. One led into the back yard and the other was closed. When I saw five weeks worth of empty cans and jars and junk stacked high in the sink and spilling over onto the counters, I grimaced, and you looked scolded and embarrassed, like when I tell you your room is messy.

I went to the fridge. I wanted to see if there was anything inside you might have left. There wasn't, but of course, you remained mute, bracing yourself, because when the door jerked open something inside jangled. A lot of somethings, actually. Then, suddenly, a mixture of stench, mould-cloud and tumbling trash forced me to slam the fridge shut again.

I plugged my nose and coughed.

Bean spooked.

You stepped back and covered your mouth.

 _Of course,_ I thought angrily. _What else other than a trash can would two teenagers use their own fridge for?_

I heard your voice inside my head. You said: _I didn't say take a look._ You were at the closed door that led to somewhere I didn't know yet. Your hand was at the handle, thumbing at it and frowning.

"What's behind it?" I asked, but you didn't say anything, of course. So I stood by your side and braced myself, and with a tough crack, you pulled. "Oh," I said. "Just the staircase."

It was pretty anti-climactic, to be honest.

A door was to the right but it was locked when I tried the handle. It was the basement. It had that 'feel' to it. You shook your head when I asked if we would go down there, and as much as I wanted to anyway I knew why you didn't want to. I remember that story, too. How Patrick told you the Bogeyman lived down there.

You.

Oliver.

Still afraid of your bogeyman.

...Me, too.

We were shoulder to shoulder. Staring up. There was a window at the top of the staircase that let some light in. Everything glowed orange through the brown curtain. Dimly though, with only a little light bouncing off of the walls and curtains.

It made you shine.

A subtle and sad and out of place kind of shine.

There was that damned lump in my throat again.

Along the walls either side of the staircase were more photos. Family photos. Lots of them. Newer and older. An interfaith wedding. A birthday party. A trip to the amusement park. A vacation to Italy. You and Patrick had gotten your father's face, your grandfather's, too, except your eyes, Oliver. Just yours. Your eyes are all your mother.

Rosa.

That was her name, wasn't it?

I don't know if you ever told me your father's.

Suddenly, a raven cawed –it sounded like it came from inside.

"Are you alright?"

Of course you weren't.

You were paralysed.

Didn't even twitch this time.

"I can go up – check if they're still there."

Your head shook, and you took a steep breath and held it for a few seconds. Me, too. The air smelled of dust and death; dry and thin and stale and rotten.

Using the butt of Lizzie's knife, you knocked on the wall four times. A moment passed, and when we heard nothing you knocked another four times.

Nothing but entire silence.

No tick or tock from a clock.

No growl from the dead.

No breath from the living.

"Four," I murmured, "why is it always four?"

You swallowed, then took the first step. I told Bean to stay, so while we went, he sat directly at the foot of the staircase and kept watch.

I don't give that dog enough credit sometimes.

You went straight to your parent's room, the sixth door furthest on the right, and waited outside and pressed your ear to the wood. The raven cawed loudly again. I saw your face. It fell and soared all at once.

"They're inside?" I asked.

I got a single nod from you.

"I'm gonna check the other rooms. Jus' to be sure."

On the left side of your 'U' shaped landing was where I started, furthest away from you. Your bedroom. Then the office. Closet. Bathroom. Then finally Patrick's room. I won't explain what I saw inside them all. You already know.

Quietly, I shut the last door and turned to you. Your eyes were shut. Even as I stood in front of you, you only inhaled, and when you finally did look at me, you didn't look at my face. You looked under it, at my collarbones, or possibly right through them –through me– until slowly, you came back to me, drifting in and up to meet my eyes and stay there. They were wet –my eyes. It made your eyes wet, too.

The raven inside cawed again.

I pressed my ear to the door with you, our noses centimetres apart.

You were trembling.

"I can't hear them. Just the bird," I mouthed.

Your finger touched the door, tapping softly, so I listened again, harder, and when I still heard nothing you very gently brought your hand up and plugged my ear.

You were so warm, Oliver, and I was so cold.

That was your butterfly effect.

You warmed me up from the outside in like sitting by a fire.

Inside the bedroom, it was still quiet, but I heard them this time. Their soft grumbles were faint, but there. Real. _They_ were. Your hand fell and I stepped back from the door. You were staring at it, like you could see through.

Could you?

Another caw.

"I'll let them out one at a time," I whispered softly, as much to tell you as to make sure it came true. "You'll put them down."

You gripped your knife tightly.

I looked around. "Hallway's too narrow for us to work side by side. I'll let whoever comes out first come my way, shut the door, hold them still. Then you can come up and take them from behind."

You nodded.

"One at a time."

Again, a nod.

"On three."

Nod nod nod nod.

"One. Two. Three."

I pushed the door.

" _Caw-caw-caw-caw-caw_!"

The raven inside flapped madly, and I caught sight of a large black wing, before it flew across and away.

The door wasn't fully open yet.

Neither of us could see inside but we were both suddenly too afraid to try anymore.

You froze.

 _God dammit,  
_ I did, too.

But nothing shambled.

You looked at me desperately so I had to push again.

A little.

A lot.

Open wide.

It was reckless and stupid but you didn't care and I couldn't bear it anymore.

But still...  
... nothing was coming.

No growl.

No lunge.

No charge.

No shamble.

The stench filled our noses and made us grimace.

I saw them.

When you stepped aside, you did, too.

Your parents.

With all the planning and the waiting and the wishing and the pining, for this day, this moment, there was always one thing you and I both had forgotten to consider. It had been more than two years since they died in this house. Starvation and decomposition had slowed them from day one. Their window is broken –must've been where the raven came from, and over the time maggots and insects and birds had eaten away at their flesh until almost nothing was left.

Your mother was missing the hole left side of her face and your father had lost all but three of his fingers and toes. Their eyes were gone. What ones was brown were now four sunken holes. Hair and nails look longer after death, and the dead start to look like nothing they once were at all. I know this – of course I do. But still, seeing them; decomposed and rotten and deader that dead itself, for a moment I didn't believe it was them. Like we'd managed to break into the wrong house somehow. Like we should have just found your _mom and dad._ Them. _Alive._ Sat on their bed reading a book together, looking like they did in the photos.

Jesus, Oliver.

You were horrified.

I'll never understand how many times a broken heart can keep on breaking.

But there you were.

There _I_ was.

Breaking our broken hearts.

Your father turned to you, just his face, the rest of him was too weak. He was closest. Your mother was across from him, sat against the wall under the window. She lifted her arm and reached out.

Her jaw snapped.

You watched.

Watching like you weren't there anymore.

I'd never really considered how strange disconnection can be. The forced rift or isolation from something you once knew and loved. I've felt it. I _feel_ it. Every day. It began with Ed, and then when he was gone, Sophia, too, the cruelness of disconnection became another thing entirely. I was experiencing it in a setting I no longer knew, surrounded by people who didn't understand how to fix me.

I still am.

And so were you, all of a sudden.

Thrown into reality without the rest of you.

Only I had no idea how you must have felt.

You were inside your town, your own _home;_ a place you understood and belonged, to _find_ the people who understood how to fix you. Once. But not anymore.

It was traumatising.

I touched your hand and you locked our fingers.

It was all I had for you.

It was _everything_ I had for you.

Your parents stirred.

They were hungry.

 _Starved._

Is there a name for a walker that hasn't had it's first kill yet? Does that make any difference? Does it count for anything? Do you, for locking them in there?

I hope so.

Again, I whispered, "Take your time, please?"

You knelt down beside your father and he couldn't manage to reach out for you. The right side of his jaw had been pulled off a long time ago, so even biting was impossible for him. I thought it would take you longer. I thought I would have to step in. But Lizzie's blade shifted, then jerked, and with a dry _squelch!_ , your father's corpse was dead.

I gasped and caught his forehead before you let it slam against the carpet, and while I laid him down properly for you, your were already scampering across the room to your mother.

"W-wait," I stammered out.

Rosa's body shrieked at you.

"Stop!" I begged.

You did, and your face twisted as not to cry.

Inside out.

That was what you were.

I was panting. "Do – do you need me to..."

Before I could finish, you shook your head.

You shook your _everything._

Her mouth was wide. It got wider the closer you moved towards her. It was horrifying. Her warm smile was now gone, replaced by a rotten murderous shell. She was a little less eaten away at, and her movements were sharper and stronger. She couldn't stand up but she could definitely bite. I wanted to remind you to take this into account. To focus. Because that was not your mother anymore.

But you already knew.

No son should know that.

No mother should have to see it.

Am I, still?

Can I still call myself that?

Your hand poised, and then Lizzie's knife was lodged through your mother's forehead.

She stilled, and you released her, and when you sat back you flattened your hand to the carpet and for a long time everything else was still, too.

Not silent.

Not even quiet.

Just...

Still.

For the first time in your life the stillness was a relief. I could see it in you. It was like some strange safeness wrapping itself around you. I, too, was wrapped around you; sat directly behind you, hugging my arms over your shoulders. Your legs were crossed under you and your chin was tucked into my palm, clinging your hand around my arm free, and for a selfish moment I wondered if it was me, that safeness.

 _Your_ safeness.

But I had to stop thinking like that.

Thinking like that makes what I have to do even harder.

For so long, and with so much effort, you hadn't willingly allowed yourself to feel it all, and I don't just mean the safeness or the stillness, but everything else, too.

But now, Oliver De Luca, you let yourself feel it all.

Finally.

I would give everything I have to let them be here for you. I would do anything just to let you complain at them. But you'll never get to watch your mother make her breakfast across the kitchen table, or ignore your father's emails. You'll never get to bring girlfriends or boyfriends home with you, and hear your parents tell you hearts would be broken and months later for you to realise they were right. It is so sad and so disappointing and so unfair, because you are never going to see your parents again. You are going to keep on killing, surviving, all alone, because they were not here to keep you safe. All this time, feeling like a part of you was trapped inside that room with them, curled up in the corner clinging to their rotting hands, whispering into your knees for them not to leave you again. It's not fair.

Well, let me tell you one thing I am most sure of, Oliver...

No matter how hard you ever love anybody, you will miss them even harder.

Your head was still in my hands, but finally, you stopped crying, and you stroked my thumb and turned around to tuck your head into my shoulder, and after a while longer you were going to get up, go downstairs to the backyard to get a start on digging. But I yanked you back suddenly.

You grunted.

I startled.

Your mother...

"She moved."

No.

Her stomach.

It squirmed.

It did.

"Oh God."

When you saw it, too, your whole anatomy shuddered.

"It's a rat," I said, saying it to come to terms with it rather than anything else. "Inside of her."

You were too mortified to say anything. To move, even.

I took the closer look.

When you started making noises I told you to calm down, to take it easy, to look away so I could deal with this for you.

You threw up.

A moment passed, and I went very still and quiet all over...

"It's not a rat."

You were clutching your stomach and panting.

"She was pregnant."

You flinched all over then.

"She can't have been too far along, two or three months, maybe," I explained quietly, kneeling to pull up her tattered, moth-bitten, lilac and grey night-gown. You looked away. "She might not've told you yet."

However confused you felt, you knew it was true, and then there was a moment that you were just looking at her. Looking like you weren't seeing her. Just it. It; a parasite rather than...

You took Lizzie's knife, and it frightened me enough that when you lurched I was fast enough to stop you.

"Don't you dare!"

You fought me. I had to hold you back as hard as I had for Paula.

"I won't let you destroy it!"

It was dead. It was a walker. I knew that, I did. But I had to stop you.

"Oliver!"

It was your name. Just your name. But it made you fall away from me. It made you cry.

"We _bury_ them," I rasped, panting heavily. "All three of them."

You stared at me.

"It'll be okay," I reassured you, "we won't leave them, not this way. I... I'll take care of it."

At that, I think winced the same time you did.

"I know what I'm doing," I told you, told myself. "I've done this before."

You had to look away throughout the C-section, but you could hear it happen, flinching and wincing at every slice. When you heard the small gnarl you curled in on yourself until you could unplug your fingers from your ears again, and I asked you if you wanted to be the one to do it, and you nodded.

Of course you did.

You brave child.

It should be family. Someone who loves it. Always. But when you saw the tiny rotten foetus wriggling in my hands, the last bricks in your walled front crumbled, and the break it left in your heart was so big that it shattered you this time.

So I did it for you.

I don't know if I count as family, to it – _him_ , or if I loved him, but I knew more than anything that I loved you, and that seemed to be enough.

An hour later, three graves were dug and your family were in the ground.

Finally.

We put the shovels back into the shed that you were still able to unlock with the code you didn't know you remembered after so long, and then we used panels of wood broken off of the fence for their headstones. You carved a cross into your mother's, the star of David into your father's, and for the baby, you didn't put anything but what it would have been to you – what it _was_...

 _BABY BROTHER_

It's worth mentioning that just before we had put them under, very carefully, you'd taken the rings from your parent's fingers and put them in your pocket. I didn't know why at the time, and I suppose I didn't find out after either. But things happen every day and nobody needs to know why at all, so I decided not to ask. Instead, you and I sat in front of their graves in the grass and the dirt. Your forehead was rested against my collar and I was holding your hand in mine, brushing your fringe out of your face with my other, and we were sharing the banana bread, taking small bites and passing it back and between.

You didn't eat much.

I didn't ask you to.

Not this time.

"Thank you for keeping your promise."

Your voice sounded rough and scratchy, like an old rusty gear grinding after years of neglect. Hearing it for the first time since the slaughterhouse was overwhelming, and I kissed the top of your head again and again.

"Why are you crying?" you asked me, pulling away to see. "Is it because of me?"

"No, I'm crying _for_ you."

You smiled sweetly. "I think I've cried enough for me already today."

"No," I replied, "you haven't."

Your eyebrows tipped up in the middle then.

Not a lot.

But I saw it.

"What is it?" I asked you.

"Can I tell you something? Something that happened?"

I nodded.

Of course I did.

You swallowed nervously, "Me and Enid had sex yesterday."

I wasn't sure what you wanted me to say to that, so for a moment I didn't say anything, and you sighed and rubbed your face with your fingertips. I thought of what I would have said to any other teenager if they'd told me the same thing in confidence, too, even Sophia. So I said, "You were safe, weren't you?"

This, apparently, was not what you wanted me to say.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry, I just–"

"We were."

"'Cause I didn't explain about that, at the hospital."

"No, you didn't."

"It didn't occur to me to. You and C–"

"It's okay."

I sighed, and said, "Good," and you pushed your chin into your hand. I squinted at you. "Why have you told me?"

"I feel like I did something wrong."

"Why?"

"She... She cried, after." You winced. "I didn't hurt her, or anything like that. She was just sad. _Really_ sad."

"Were you?"

You shook your head. "I wasn't anything."

I was quiet for a moment, because I knew what you meant, and after the moment was over I asked, "Why did you do it?"

"I don't know," you explained. "Just, wanted to. Just wanted to, just to..."

"To feel something."

Your sigh was your confirmation, but instead of voicing it you asked, "Can I tell you something else? Something I've never told anybody?"

Again, I nodded, and your eyes wetted.

Not a lot.

But, again, I still saw it.

"A lot of the time I want to die," you said.

That, Oliver De Luca, was the worst thing you have ever said to me. My heart didn't only break when you told me. I can't tell you what it did, exactly. I don't even know. I just know that it hurt in a way like it hadn't hurt in a very long time.

I said your name.

Again, it made you cry.

"I think about Paula and Dawn and Gareth and the Governor," you told me, "and I'm jealous of them. Angry. How come they get to go? How come we think we win, when we're still here? Sad and lost and numb?"

You looked at me and you wiped your eyes, but the tears didn't stop and it was hard to understand what you were saying.

"I think of my parents, of my – my brothers. I think of Mikey. And Ron and Sam. And Nell and Mika and Lizzie and Ty. Beth, Hershel. I miss them. I miss Lori and I miss Dale and I miss Andrea and Amy and T-Dog and Jacqui, and Sophia, and – and I never even _met_ them. What's with that? Why do I have to feel so much for people who are gone? Who I don't even know. Why do I have to be so sad about things I can't change? Why am I so..."

"Human," I said, and winced, and you dipped your head and glared at your stump.

"I hate the way I am," you said to it. Your face was twisted tightly. "And I – I just... I want to go, without hurting anybody. But, you care too much. I wish you didn't care – no, no, I – I wish you didn't hurt when you cared. I know that that's selfish of me. I know. But, it's like I'm only here to keep other people from being sad – as sad as I am. And, it kills me to know that you're as sad as that already because there's nothing I can do to make the hurt go away."

For a moment I had nothing to say to you. You had just said it. All of it. You took my thoughts and felt them with your own heart.

It killed me, too.

I pushed the tears off of my face and they soaked into the grass under my palms.

"I need to tell you something, too," I whispered into your hair.

You waited.

And waited.

But still, I could not tell you...

"Carol?"

You were looking up at me.

Your eyes can look so big.

They overwhelm me.

"What is it?"

 _I'm doing something I always should have...  
but not yet._

I stood up. "Come on, let's get what we need," I said.

You were watching me with those eyes.

Those overwhelming eyes that shimmer.

Only, now?

Now they were still. Focused.

"Pack light, though, okay?" I said.

"... Yes, ma'am."

We didn't take a lot, hardly anything. You hardly filled your backpack. But what you did take turned out to be all you needed. I think I took more than you did, stuffing my backpack with all the things you and your brother had left upstairs and never had the nerve to go and collect yourselves; medication, batteries and some old clothes –I asked your permission first, of course.

You wanted to give me a pair of your mother's earrings.

"Oliver, I can't."

"But I want you to."

I felt guilty.

You didn't understand why.

I couldn't even tell you.

"Really," you insisted. "You haven't worn any since the Saviours and I saw them on the dresser and thought they'd suit you."

You held them in my palm and firmly closed our fingers around them.

"They were _Nonna's_ – she was a June baby. Pearl was her birthstone. When Mom became a mom, _Nonna_ gave them to her as this right of passage thing. I just, thought, you're like, my, uh... you know – so, Mom would want you to have them, too."

I hugged you before you saw me crying.

You hugged me back, and you sighed into my shoulder.

I put the earrings in and you just smiled. It almost made me feel beautiful. Maybe I even did, for a second. And then you, Bean and I stood in the front door.

"You ready?" I asked you.

You nodded nervously. "Yeah."

...

Was it hard?

Oliver De Luca.

To go?

Like all those camps.  
The prison.  
The train station.  
The church.  
The hospital.  
Even that damned barn...

Was it difficult to leave?

I hope not.

I hope it gets easier.

Like practice.

Or, maybe it's only hard up until you actually leave.

Maybe then it will be the easiest thing I will ever do.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Unsteady_ by X Ambassadors. Second line in this chapter was inspired by Ariana Dancu's quote, _"She made broken look beautiful and strong look invincible. She walked with the Universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings."_ I was also originally going to go into a lot more detail about Oliver's and Patrick's bedroom. But I figured it was better to let y'all imagine it yourselves.

THIS CHAPTER LITERALLY HAS TAKEN ME TWO YEARS. I SWEAR TO GOD, NO CHAPTER IN THIS STORY HAS EVER BEEN WORKED ON LONGER THAN THIS SHIT AND I STILL WANT TO THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW

 **Preview: The Saviours are back to fuck things up, basically. Also, some friendships are amended and Rosita and Daryl need to keep a better eye on their booze...**

My friend, **TheDarkerSide123** has written a CarlxOMC called **Bury the Hatchet.** Go check it out!

As always,  
Happy reading.


	21. Twice as Far, Part 3: Arrow Bolt

**The Sorrowful Deity** thanks!

 **TheDarkerSide123** You're a cool vampire and I'm glad your story is doing so well.

 **The Flash Fanatic** he would totally appreciate that. I definitely do!

 **RHatch89** thanks

 **AwkwardlyMeOli** I adore you.

 **Uriel867** Thank you!

 **Guest** Not too long at all. I read every word of your review and loved it all. Thank you so much. That was beautiful.

 **Blood On My Machete** Thank you infinitely!

 **Biter Two** I gotta check out the Hamilton soundtrack soon. And ah! Thank you.

 **DarthGranola** thank you!

 **SophTheSoap** Thank you! That's awesome

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _Older brother, restless soul, lie down  
Lie for a while with your ear against the earth  
And you'll hear your sister sleep talking  
Say, "Your hair is long but not long enough to reach,  
Home to me,  
But your beard,  
Someday might be..._

* * *

Something meows from my backpack.

Carol turns.

I cough. "Sorry... asthma—"

" _Meow_ _!_ "

"—shit."

Carol closes in.

"Look, I can explain... actually, no, I can't."

"You _brought_ it with us?!"

I shrug and keep walking.

"What is the matter with you?"

Again, I shrug. "Wanted to keep it."

"You ' _wanted to keep it'_?"

"M-hm." I kick the stones under my boots.

I found something, while I was looking through my bedroom. The window was left open and the curtain was drawn back—the night everything happened I'd been looking at the stars, so in the time since I'd used it it's become a mini animal kingdom. There was bird crap on my dresser and wardrobe, some kind of large insect with far too many legs making a nest in my sock drawer, and then, in the corner, by my bed, I could hear a single, small meow, and there, behind my trash can, was a cat's den. The mother was dead, infested with maggots, the other five kittens too. But the sixth kitten was still barely alive.

Its coat is straggly and the colour of mouldy yack, riddled with fleas and worms—I'm sure it won't even make the trip home in my backpack, that's why Carol told me to put it back.

"But it's cute."

"Oliver, it's crueller bringing it with us."

I shih. I look past her. "That horse is still following us."

She turns and huffs. In my life, I've been followed by a lot of things. Bullies, walkers, strangers, dogs... even vultures once. But a horse? That's a first. Carol and I weren't really sure what to do. It just strolled out from a pasture a few miles back outside of Lorton. We thought it would go away, especially when we turned onto the track –because _yes, maybe tracks, but only today–_ but now, almost back at the cross-road, the horse has stayed on our tail.

It looks old—greying parts around its face and legs, but overall looking okay. It keeps a good hundred yards behind us, but seems tame enough.

Carol sighs. "You're like some God damned animal wrangler today."

I take that as a compliment.

"Hold on," I ask, "well, can't we..."

"No." As we walk, the horse following, Carol grimaces and stops suddenly. "Make it quick."

"Really?"

She nods.

"Wait," I say, smile fading, "...how?"

"I'm no horse whisperer. _You_ figure it out."

I frown.

"And don't get killed. I mean it."

A little lost, I nod and turn.

The horse stops, snorts.

With one last check with Carol _—she's holding Bean back—_ I head for the horse, reaching into my backpack. The kitten inside scratches me and I curse, but manage to grab some leftover banana bread. I leave the backpack on the ground, zipped up. The horse is watching me with big, black, shiny eyes. It isn't too far away, its head bowed a little, ears pricked forward.

Plastic wrapper crackles in my hand. I hold it out. It takes a small step forward, snorts. I startle. Its ears go flat back against his neck and it waves its whole head up and down. I look down and away, remembering reading something back about most animals feeling threatened by too much eye-contact.

With another snort, the horse comes a little closer, until its standing in front of me. I look up, hold out my hand, and the horse stretches its neck and takes another step and then it's eating the bread from my hand. I grin. It lets me pet it. I rub its shoulder with my amp while it roots through my pockets.

"Sorry I don't have more."

I look back at Carol. She's watching me, smiling.

"Cool to meet you," I whisper to the horse. "I'm Oliver."

The horse blows in my face like a gentle hair-drier. A fuzzy warm feeling spreads through my chest because I think we're friends now. I'm about to bring my arm up, rub his nose or something, but there's a crack of thunder and warm blood sprays across my face. Half a tonne of horse collapses at my feet and a switch in my brain flips from _cattle_ to _butcher—_ my Glock's in my hand, there's movement on my left.

BLAM!

I watch a stranger's brain explode. She seemed all coal-coloured but now she's red. Another stranger scampers out of the tree-line behind her like some wild thing. He, too, seems coal coloured, like they've been digging in soot all their lives. Only, he's just a boy, younger than me.

"Merope! No, _Merope_!" He looks at us, howling his scream, and then he's stood up.

"Don't," Carol begs. "Don't, please."

He runs at me and I let him, reeling.

"STOP!" Carol screams.

Small hands seize my throat and I'm knocked to the tracks. Bean grabs him by the leg. The boy screams and squeezes and I gag and gasp and — _another gunshot_ — his whole body cracks open. I watch him die. I shove him off, heaving, and the next thing I'm aware of is that Carol is yanking me up. She stabs the boy through the head and then we're disappearing off the track, into the trees. "Shit, stay low. Stay low." I do. Even Bean does. "Think I saw others."

Quickly, we make it back to the _Astoundingly Ugly_ car. The other truck's still here. Carol curses. "They're not here. They should be here. It's been too long." She puts my rucksack on the seat and tells me to get in. "Don't think we were followed. They looked desperate. Starved. Alone."

I swallow.

"Get in." Bean does. "Stay low. Don't come out. I'll be back soon."

"W...what?"

"Oliver, get in the car."

I shut the door and put my back to it.

"I said _get in the car_ ," Carol hisses.

"No."

"Damn it, Oliver!"

" _What,_ Carol?!" I bark. "What? Am I supposed to _be_ someone else, too?" Carol is staring at me. "They aren't here yet..." I draw my Glock. "We wait together or we look together. Splitting up is stupid."

"I just killed somebody for you."

"And I killed someone for _you!_ "

Despite my loud voice, her silence is louder.

She steps back. I don't follow her.

"You hear _anything,_ " she tells me, "you shoot and you run, alright? Get in."

I'm going to, furious, but Bean is growling and barking. I get a bad feeling, like we're being watched, and we are, because then—"Good advice, lady."

Carol draws. Me, too. Only it's too late.

"Ah, ah, ah. Put 'em down."

He's in his thirties, his accent is local, a little more rhotic and breathless. His shoulder-length hair is blond and tucked behind his ears, his skin is pale, and the whole left side of his face is burned and scarred. He's holding a crossbow— _Daryl's crossbow_. He's got friends. A whole group. All men. They surround us. They don't look much like the two Oliver saw before. They're not feral but organised, armed... aimed.

"I ain't gonna ask you again," Scarface insists.

Another man pulls Eugene out of the shrubs. He's sweaty and crying. Bean is going nuts, cackled at and taunted by the Scarface's guys. Carol looks at me, her eyes wet. She looks at the ground and shakes her head, the smallest, "I can't do this anymore," leaving her mouth.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I... I'm sorry."

"Adorable..." We're grabbed and shoved to our knees, stripped of our possessions. They tell us not to move or talk while they bind our hands—for me, they fasten a zip-tie around my wrist and through my belt-loop, my right arm loose and useless. They're Saviors. Dwight, Scarface, the group's leader. We tell them our names, then we're led into the forestry. I lose my bearings. We're taken so far I can't even hear Bean.

They tells us Negan will be glad to see us, that they've been looking for us for a long time now:—"Seven months... Damn."

"We were starting to lose hope in finding you guys, were following those two—the ones you and your boy took down. We were gonna bring _them_ back."

"Did us nasty a few days ago."

"Yeah, but we ran into this lump, wondering the road. He looked interesting. Backpack full. Clean. Looking like he was off somewhere important."

"Ah, but his pony tail sealed the deal, right guys?" They laugh. Nobody mentions Abraham. "Then we heard you blasting up those poor bastards yourselves, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity of getting _three_ of you, now, could we?"

"Now..." Dwight says. "It's only business. Don't be holding no grudge."

At one point, a man starts loitering around Carol, and then he tries to touch her neck, so I swing around and bite him. I hear a howl, and then I'm punched across the face and knocked to the ground.

"Damn bastard bit me!"

Someone hits me again, and again.

"No, _please_ _!_ " I hear Carol. " _Stop!_ "

Then Dwight is here. He grabs the loiterer and shoves him back.

"What the hell are you doing?" he growls.

They keep talking. I don't know what they say exactly but I know they listen to Carol because I'm not getting beaten anymore. The left side of my face from my chin to my collarbone throbs.

"Excuse us," Dwight says, breathless. I hear a few men shuffling and grumbling. Someone pulls me up. "That won't happen to you again, ma'am. Negan doesn't like that kinda violence. Zero tolerance."

We keep walking.

"There's a cooler in there!" At some point, people start to stop at a voice in the distance. "Might be something we can use inside!" Denise. "We got what we came for!" Rosita. "Nah! Ain't worth the trouble, c'mon! Gotta find those shots. If it's them they wouldn'ta used two bullets for jus' a couple walkers." Daryl.

" _Hooly_ fuck," Dwight mutters. "These your people, too?" His crossbow comes up under my chin. I grit my teeth and shut my eyes.

"They're ours," Carol blurts.

Dwight lowers the crossbow.

"Today is a _good_ day, boys," he says.

Talk happens quickly. Something about—"Time to show them we're serious." My voice won't work. My feet scuff against the earth and leaves. We stop at the tree-line, hidden inside it, the tracks ahead.

"What the hell was that?" Daryl is yelling. "You coulda died right there, you know that?"

"Who gives a shit!?" Denise shouts back. " _You_ could've died killing those Saviors, all of you, but you _didn't_! You wanna live? You take chances. That's how it works! That's what I did!"

"For a couple o' damned sodas?"

"Nope. Just this one... C'mon, let's find them." Squinting, I make out three figures marching up onto the tracks ahead, hunted and oblivious to it.

"Are you seriously _that_ stupid?" Rosita yells.

"Are you?" Denise asks.

They stop walking. _Run,_ I scream in my head. _Run!_ I hate my throat. I hate my mouth. I hate my lungs. When I need them most they forget they're a part of me. They forget _I_ tell _them_ what to do.

"I mean it, are you? Do you have _any clue_ what that was to me? What this whole thing is to me? See, I have training in this shit. I'm not making it up as I go along, like with the stitches and the amputation, and the...

I asked you to come with me because you're brave like my brother and sometimes you actually make me feel safe.

And I wanted you here because you're alone. Probably for the first time in your life. And because you're stronger than you think you are, which gives me hope, that maybe I can be, too.

I could've gone with Tara. I coulda told her I loved her but I didn't. Because I was afraid..."

The crossbow comes up in Dwight's arms.

"... _That's_ what's _stupid._ Not coming out here, not _facing_ my shit, and it makes me _sick,_ that you guys aren't even _trying!_ Because you're strong, and you're smart, and you're _really good people_ and if you don't wake—"

 _ftwoop_

"—up—"

A bolt travels through skull and eye socket.

"—and f _ac_ e yo _ur... urr..."_

It's like she's still in there, like she's just confused about why her mouth isn't doing what she's asking it to, like she's so filled up and passionate that she just hasn't caught up yet, and then she does catch up, her brain slows, and she falls into Daryl's arms. It's too late to do anything. They're forced to drop their guns while Carol, Eugene and I are forced up the track and knelt down in a line in front of them.

Daryl is so furious he's shaking.

"You got something to say to me?!" Dwight goads him. "Clear the air? Step up on that high horse? No. You don't talk much." They're stripped of their weapons and supplies. "Still getting the hang of her," Dwight goes on. "Crossbow kicks like a _bitch_ but — What was that? Seriously, I didn't catch what you said."

"I shoulda killed you."

"Yeah, you probably should've." Dwight smiles. "So, here we are. Kinda begs the question, right? Who brought this on who? I mean, I get that you'll just have to take my word for this but... she wasn't even who I was aiming for."

 ** _Just like Merope.  
She wasn't aiming for the horse..._**

"Like I said," Dwight tells him. "Kicks like a bitch. It's nothin' personal. Look, this isn't how we like to start new business arrangements but you pricks kinda set the tone, didn't you?"

"What do you want?" Rosita snaps.

"I'm sorry, darlin'. I didn't catch your name. I'm D. Or Dwight, you can call me either. _So,_ what's your name?"

"Rosita. _What do you want?_ "

"Well, _Roosiitaa._ It's not what I _want._ It's what you and your friends are going to do. You're going to let us into your little complex. It looks like it's just beautiful in there. And then you're going to let us take whatever, and _whoever,_ we want.

 _Or_ we blow the boy's brains out, then theirs, then yours.

I hope it doesn't come to that, really. Nobody else has to die. We usually just try to start with one. You know: maximum impact to get our point across.

So, what's it going to be, you tell me?"

"You wanna kill someone," Eugene burst out saying, "you start with our companion hiding over there behind the oil barrels. He's a first-class a-hole and he deserves it so much more than us five."

We all look but see nothing behind the oil barrels. Dwight sends off a few men to check. I glance at Carol. She's staring at the floor, shaking her head, like she wants me to stop. And then, fast, Eugene swivels around and bites what's between Dwight's legs. He doubles forward, screaming, and then there's gunfire. A lot of it. Abraham, who _was_ behind the oil barrels, takes out two men right off the bat. Daryl slits one's throat, then shoots more. Rosita's machine-gunning some. Eugene goes down. Carol screams something like, "Get your ass down!" and then she throws herself on top of me. We duck under the bullets.

Walkers are coming. One grabs Carol's foot but somebody shoots it. She grabs me. I shut my teeth against her coat-zipper because it's the only way I can hold onto her.

"FALLBACK! FALLBACK!"

Gunfire clangs against iron, spraying embers over our heads, until it stops, and there's just breathing. Then Rosita is grabbing us, cutting our zip-ties, and we're crowding around Eugene. He's groaning and bleeding and Daryl is grabbing his crossbow and running after the retreating Saviors. But Rosita stops him. Denise is still laid along the tracks, dead. I'm waiting for her to finish her sentence, even while I'm helping get her and Eugene back to the truck, rushing and shouting and gasping.

* * *

On the drive home, I curl up in the gap in front of the back seats and Carol's passenger seat, while Daryl drives, and Denise lays behind me on the seat, her knees up to give Bean enough room to sit. I'm not even sad anymore. I'm just, _so_ angry.

"Pull over," Carol says after we've driven a few miles. "Come on. I'll drive."

Daryl does as told. I think he's crying. His breath is harsh. He buries his eyes in his hands. His tears run dirty smears down his wrists and when he gets out of the car, Carol watches him circle the hood and punch it. We jump. I hear him crying. Carol gets out and holds him—I see it when I turn to look. I don't do anything. I don't _feel_ anything. Numbs in that awful way all over again, so I do what I do when that happens. I reach across and I pull the cigarette burner from the middle compartment. The metal inside glows. I check nobody will catch me. Then I push it into my skin.

Bean watches. I clamp back a scream, taking the scald until my brain goes cloudy and I don't feel the numb anymore. I don't feel the _me_ anymore.

* * *

At home, Eugene gets treated—flesh wound; without the meds Denise found today, he would've died. Carol and I get to digging Denise's grave, joined by Daryl soon enough. He has one of those keychains with a name on them. It reads: _DENNIS._ I keep digging—it's hard and sore with one hand.

"Stop, Oliver," Carol tells me. I keep going. "Stop... Look at me... _Stop it!_ " All at once she's grabbing me and snatching my arm. It has blisters. Broken now. "What is— _What is that?!_ "

I wrench my arm out of her grip and shove my sleeve down.

 _Don't.  
Please, don't say it again..._

But she does.

"What is wrong with you?"

It's worse than this morning. This morning she screamed it at me. Now, she barely whispers it. I walk away, throwing the shovel at the pile of dirt. I kick it, send earth scattering into the hedge and wall. I put my back against the church wall out of their sight, scared I might split open.

"What're you doin', Carol?"

"What?"

"Carol, c'mon, what're you doin'? He's jus' a kid... He's dealin' with this the only way he knows how. It's fucked—least y'could do is not call him out on it. Not like that. You don't think he knows it's wrong? Y'don't think he knows that shit already?"

"There's so much pain already. He doesn't need to keep doing it to himself."

"Neither do you."

I'm crying, careful they don't hear me.

"This ain't you. Carol. It ain't."

"You were right, before. I knew it when you said it."

 _Said what?  
What's going on, Carol?_

They keep digging. I walk away.

* * *

A minute or so later, I'm in the truck rummaging through the glove box. "Where the fuck are you, you little bastards?" I check the middle compartment, under the seat. Yes.

Daryl must have taken his share. Some of the little Danville Bridge whiskey bottles are gone. I could get away with taking one or two more, but in the end I grumble, "Screw it," and take the lot. "Screw it all in the dick—I don't give a crapping ballsack."

I don't bother to conceal the bag, so, inevitably, I get caught.

"Oliver?"

Suddenly, all those screws and crapping ballsacks I'd decided I don't give come tumbling in like an explicit stampede. I turn around, casual enough to wave; the bag of whiskey crackles.

"Hey," Glenn says. He doesn't talk about Denise. He picks his voice up and points. "What you doing with all those?"

"Err... I'm going to drink them."

"Yourself?"

"Yep..."

"Why?"

I shrug.

"If you're thirsty, you know we have taps, right?" He's trying to make a joke but I'm busy walking away. "Hey, hey, wait, wait. Dude, come on, what're you doing?" "I'm going to dr—" "No, no, I mean... Oliver, come on... what are you doing?"

I look into his eyes.

I say, "I put my parents down today, and I killed a person, and I saw Denise die... so I'd like to go, for a while—for now, if you don't mind, sir. Honestly, even if you do mind, I'm still going to."

Glenn sighs. I don't know why because I'm working very hard on not changing anything in my face. My chest still hurts like something inside it is trying to scream. I hold it down. Don't even breathe. He puts his hand on my shoulder. I tell him I'll punch him in the throat if he tries to stop me.

"Honestly, Glenn. I will."

"Oliver..." I'm putting the bag of booze over my other arm now. "...you are not going to— _rufck!_ " Glenn Rhee and the side-walk collide with a loud grunt. I'm shifting hyper-actively on the spot. He's clutching his Adam's apple. " _Jesus,_ man!"

"I... I'm sorry. I... I said I would." My knuckle throbs so I shake it. "You didn't believe me."

Glenn gets up and snatches the bag from me. I've not had much practice with fists and I'm still shocked that I just did that, and he knows it too, so he dodges my next punch and grabs my collar with his free hand before I can catch myself. I struggle and grunt and call him names I've never called anybody, like "Cunt!" and "Fucker!" and "I don't want to be here I couldn't stop them I couldn't save her!"

Then we're both just breathing very hard and his hands are on both of my shoulders holding me still. Glenn's eyes are very brown. Not brown like mine. Not brown like Michonne's either. Glenn's brown is all one solid _brown_ , like wet tree bark, like something you can trust your life with if you wanted to.

I don't want to.

"Get the hell off me!"

"Oliver, listen to me!"

"Let me go! _Letmego!_ "

" _Stop!_ " he shouts, and lets go so I stumble. "You are _not_ doing this today, man!" He points a finger. I swat it away. I try to walk away but he grabs me again. "You are coming to her funeral because she loved you and you are her family!"

" _My family is dead!_ "

Glenn is not as angry anymore. Neither is he as loud. In fact, his voice is thick and quiet. "That's not true," he whispers. "You know that."

My jaw's clenched so hard I can't even reply.

Glenn grimaces.

"You're _supposed_ to be there for her," he says. "We're supposed to be there for you. Even now. Even always." He rubs his eyes tiredly, and when he points, this time he uses his whole hand. "You can't just push us away because it's scary. You kids keep doing that, like... like you think it'll work. Like you think it's gonna _stop_ it from hurting. Well it's _not_ _!_ It doesn't _stop_ hurting, that's why you keep _trying._ Because when it's good, even for a little while, it is _so_ good. It's worth it. _Get_ _that through your head._ Please?"

I'm looking at my boots, scowling and swatting away tears. Glenn swallows, rubbing his throat. It's turning red. The truck is only a few yards away because I didn't get very far. Glenn marches over and puts the booze on the front seat, then he's coming back, walking past.

"You come to the funeral or you get back in that truck... your choice, Oliver."

* * *

After Denise's funeral, people start moving towards the clinic, like they're still saying goodbye. Tobin kisses Carol's forehead when he heads over. Abraham frowns a lot. Carl hugs Sasha, and Rick pats my shoulder and calls me a "Good boy." Before Rosita leaves, she nods to Denise's grave like they'd been talking, like she's got ghosts too. When Michonne goes, she hugs me—her hugs are neat and secure and warm, full of dreadlocks and calm, all over, and then she pulls away I feel like I'm floating.

Daryl is the last to leave.

"Will you be okay?" Carol asks him.

"Sure."

He doesn't come to the clinic. Even though I do, I keep mostly to myself. I sit on the window ledge overlooking the lake. Bean's there, sitting in the shade.

Rosita and Eugene are arguing over if he should drink, on account of the antibiotics he's dosed up on. Carol was talking with the others but now she's gathering her things and telling me she'll be at home. I offer to go with her but she tells me to stay—"Be home for supper."

Enid comes over at some point. She sits behind me and puts her hands in my pockets and presses her nose into the space between my shoulder-blades—when she inhales, my spine goes cool, and when she exhales, it warms up again.

Finally, I ask, "Tell me your name, Enid?"

"What?"

"I want to know it."

I feel her frown. "Does it matter?"

"It does."

She sighs. My spine warms up again. And into it, she whispers, "Enid Cholle. It's Welsh. From the word cholledig, which means _lost_. My parents were into that kinda stuff. They thought it was poetic, giving me a name that meant _Lost Spirit._ Pretty ironic, huh? Pretty sad."

And I say, "Yeah."

And she says, "You look like a lost spirit... lost boy."

And I say, "I am."

And then a lot of time passes before she says, "I know."

Eventually, she gets up. "I forgot something."

I can't ask what it is she's leaving for because she is gone too quickly, so I sit for a while longer until Rosita offers me a bottle of whiskey. I confess that I was going to steal them. She just rolls her eyes and slips four small bottles into my hoodie. I'm not about to argue.

I also need to pee.

It's quiet upstairs. Not like downstairs, which is overpacked. After I pee, I decide to stay upstairs for a while. Others come and go to the bathroom but otherwise nobody pays me much attention. I sit at the end of landing on floor, knees against my chest. A little while, I hear Enid returning, only she's talking to somebody.

"Where'd you find it?" Carl asks her.

"I didn't," she replies.

I realise that I haven't had enough whiskey for this.

 ** _You haven't had any._**

"Hey, Lost Boy." Enid sits with me. "We couldn't find you."

Carl smiles politely and sits with us, opposite. He's wearing sweat-pants, a button-up flannel and a T-shirt under it that I know says:

 _'WANTED  
DEAD & ALIVE  
SCHRODINGER'S CAT' _

As uncomfortable as this is, I guess today's circumstance is enough to loosen the tension a bit. I don't know why it takes me so long to notice what he's holding—or more specifically _who,_ because in his palm sits a very soggy, very startled, very straggly, little kitten. It's thrashing.

"I didn't mean to look through your things," Enid explains, "but backpacks aren't meant to hiss." Carl struggles to hold onto it. "I gave it a bath, some scraps. We can't tell how old it is or if it's a boy or a girl, but it eats solids and we gave it flea and worm treatment, so it'll be okay."

It looks like a very angry miniature lion.

"It's kind of mean," Carl says. This is the first thing he's said to me in days.

"Olivia says it just needs to settle in," Enid tells us. "She says, if it lives, it'll be useful for rodent control."

"You thought of a name for it?" Carl asks us.

"Maybe we shouldn't name it yet," Enid says. "We don't know if it'll even make it."

The landing fills with meowing and it occurs to me that I haven't yet contributed to the conversation. Furthermore, it occurs to me that they're expecting me to.

Enid reaches into my pocket and pulls out the Danville Bridge bottles.

"Are you drinking?"

I shake my head.

"Do you want to?"

I shrug, so she pops open the little cork stopper and takes a swig. It makes her grimace. When she hands it to me, I only hesitate a second before I drink, too. The whiskey burns, but once it's down it makes my chest and belly warm.

" _Ugh..._ that's so nasty."

She drinks again. There's only a few mouthfuls left so offers it to Carl. He declines until she leaves it by his knee, and he looks at me and I shrug so he drinks a generous gulp. He splutters.

Enid shakes her head and drinks the last drop, wincing. She hands me the empty bottle and I lay it on its side against the floor and roll it back and forth under my finger. The sound tickles my ears.

"Can I have another?"

"Go ahead."

She drinks this one alone, and when finished, with her lips all wet and twisted, she asks me, "Did you get home?" and I look at the empty space above my head.

"Yeah."

"Is it over? Is it done?"

I just nod.

The kitten mewls. Enid decides to take it back to her house. I offer to go with her but she declines and tells me to stay. She also takes the last three bottles of whiskey with her. Then it's just me and Carl. Which, when I think about it, was probably Enid's intention.

Neither of us say much. People come and go to the bathroom. Carl is just looking directly in front of him. I am, too, only I suppose I'm not as well because I am looking at him looking in front of him. But I can't look for too long because he seems annoyed and guilty and sad but like he's trying very hard to be indifferent about it, only he isn't doing a very good job. He's been crying, I can tell. Hard crying—his eyes are puffy and red and blood shot. He and Denise were close, too.

Our eyes catch once then crack apart. I almost _hear_ it. And then the sad and guilt and irritated suddenly merges into one whole _thing_ in his expression at once, and his hand comes up through his fringe. The silence between us is killing me, but that doesn't mean it'll be me who breaks it.

When Carl finally realises this, he sighs.

"What do you want me to say, Oliver?"

I frown at him.

"You haven't talked to me in three days," he goes on. "I just want to help—to do _something_. You're—"

"I don't need you to do anything," I retort. "I don't _need_ you to _say_ anything. Not you or Enid or anybody. You don't have to fix me. Stop trying to fix me. Let _me_ fix me. All I need you to do is just... just..."

"Just _what_?"

"Just _be_."

Carl's scowl turns into a full-blown scorn. His eye goes cold, like ice. And I know that I sound like a brat. I know that I'm offered help every day and I still don't take it. _I know I know I know._

"You know what?" he asks. "Screw you."

"No," I retort, sitting forward. "Screw _you._ I get shitted on all the time. Put through hell. And I get kidnapped and molested and shot and made to eat cigarettes, and then, when I'm safe again, when I'm on my own, in my own head, and when it's all biting me in the _fucking_ asshole, I do things I shouldn't because I am mad and sad and lonely. I can't help it. Sometimes I want to die. I want to stop it myself so that nothing else gets the chance. But the reason I don't is because of you... It's... It's because of Carol, and Enid, and Glenn and Maggie, and Michonne and your dad. It was because of Denise. All of you. And it still is. Because this whole place and everybody still here _is_ still here."

He's staring at me. If I look at his throat I can see his heartbeat in his collarbones.

"I am _not_ okay," I tell him. "And neither are you."

His fact turns soft.

"For seven months you've been treating me like shit," I explain, "like some loser. Like I don't know anything, like I don't know who _you_ are... _what_ you are. When I _do._ " I stop and swallow and take a breath and hold it, then keep going. "You push me around and you yell at me and you tell me you can't stand me. And I just... _put up_ with it, because I know you can't remember everything. I know you don't understand what we... what we were together. I know you're not..."

Again, I stop, shutting my eyes this time because my chest hurts like it did the very first time he asked who I was.

"Look, I'm just sick of it, too, aright?" I say. "I am. I'm _sick_ of letting you do that to me. I'm sick of telling myself it's easier."

Someone is coming up the stairs.

"Dad..." Carl has tears on his face and wipes them.

"Boys," Rick says, and asks if we're alright—I pocket both empty whiskey bottles, and we both say we're fine so Rick uses the bathroom.

While he is inside, I tell Carl, "But I'm not sick of you, man..." which is the last thing I wanted to say, because I mean it, because—"I really hope you aren't sick of me either."

We hear the flush from two doors down. I'm looking at Carl's mouth because it's stretching and he's shaking his head like he's just heard the most ridiculous thing in the world to him.

"I'll, uh, take that as a 'no' then?" I ask, smiling, too.

"No," he confirms. "I'm not sick of you, Oliver."

"Good."

He chuckles. "Yeah, good."

Rick comes out then, drying his hands on his jeans.

"Come downstairs, boys," he suggests.

We go.

"Hey. Man. I'm sorry about Denise," I tell Carl while I follow him across the clinic into the room he woke up in. Michonne is here, sitting on the edge of the bed with Judith, who is barely awake and clinging to Patty Catty. "She saved your life."

"Saved yours, too," Carl says. He kisses Judith's forehead and tells his father and Michonne he'll be around. Mrs. Miller tells him he's—"A good young man."

"Didn't... think you knew about that," I say to him; our conversation seems to be taking place under our breaths between outside conversations, because I'm also telling Rick and Michonne I'll see them around and putting up with Mrs. Miller pinching my cheeks.

Carl holds the door open.

"Well, I don't know if I remember it very well, but I know it's true."

I stop when he crosses the street.

"Oliver?"

"Wait, what are we doing?"

Carl shrugs. "Hanging out, guess."

"Oh..."

"Something wrong?"

"No, no, it's just... haven't, in a while. Wasn't expecting it."

Carl looks me up and down. "Well, do you want to?"

I'm squinting, frowning... nodding. Carl nods, too. He grabs my sleeve and tugs me to accompany him.

"Good."

"Yeah, good."

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Blood_ by The Middle East; Thanks, dearpureblood, your ears are amazing.

RIP Denise

If you read the AU, you know what the kitten will be called.

I really liked the boy and woman who Carol and Oliver killed. They were like some weird reflection of how Oliver and Carol see themselves. The name, Merope, in Greek, means foster mother, because I'm honestly trash when it comes to that symbolism shit. Also, I honestly think that Oliver's low-key _zebra_ affliction is just going to make it super hard for him to not swoon over every horse he sees apparently

New chapter every two weeks, I'm doing it *pants heavily*

As always,  
Happy reading.


	22. Fair Game

**This Sorrowful Deity** Yeah, think Carl is slowly learning _How to Oliver_ again.

 **RHatch89** *sends hearts

 **The Flash Fanatic** Oliver loves you, too!

 **Random Fandom Kid** Not bummed at all. Do you know what I am? I am so proud of you. You are doing so well.

 **IwalkOnMyOwn** Yeah, God, life and lack of Wi-Fi has been kicking my ass long enough I've had to update over half a week late. Oops. So thank you.

 **BloodOnMyMachete** If he can compare her to a fairy then I think he owes it to let her call him a lost boy. I'm glad you don't think my easter eggs are too much. Yeah, Merope and the boy were starving and desperate and she figured Oliver was the bigger threat and Carol was just some old lady, so planned to take Oliver out and then rob Carol. Lazy, I know, but I needed an excuse for Dwight to find them. Yeah, I actually changed the book to Wizard of Oz. Ps. Carl says over his dead body!

 **SophTheSoap** Aw, your cat sounds adorable. And Oliver would love you; Italian _and_ an animal whisperer!

 **NoisySunday** No, no, no, your reviews are never too long. Yes, I get this terrible gutpain whenever I think about Tara finding out about Denise. I'll make a concerted effort to have Oliver interact more independently with the other characters.

 **Stride4Life** Thank you

 **Guest** You and Enid should hold a support group.

 **Anna** Hello! Glad to hear from you, lovely. Thanks, I'm happy you enjoyed it! Means a lot. Ps. Well done on Instagram!

* * *

 _Had no Wi-Fi for a while; in a strange transition between moving house, having no official house to move in to, trying not to lose my marbles and preparing for uni. It's exciting and frustrating at the same time. Regardless, thanks for sticking around._

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

Bean's running.

Oliver's on his skateboard.

Me, my bike—well, not _mine,_ but nobody was using it.

We travel around the community, following the wall all the way through the solar panels until we come out and ride across the footpath past the lake. Bean barks, bumping his nose against our ankles. I'm not sure where we're going or what we're doing, but I'm going with it.

Oliver grabs the back of my seat when he gets tired, so I stand up and we cruise along. I catch Oliver grin. I grin, too. "Can't keep up?"

Oliver scoffs and pushes ahead, the ukulele (that he'd picked up when he got his board) lies against his back, up-side down, and there's a bruise on his neck that, when I'd asked, he told me he didn't do to himself.

We're riding past the church now.

He shows off with a few ollies—the ukulele on his back chimes.

"That's cool," I say, only I _actually_ say, "That all you got?" and I wonder why I can't just say a genuine sentence to him anymore, why I have to be an asshole and say stupid things instead, like I've forgotten how to translate mind-to-mouth.

Oliver doesn't seem to think about this as much because he turns down the next street and jumps up onto the sidewalk. He wobbles, but saves himself smoothly, dodging an uneven slab and skidding back down a driveway onto the street beside me. I pedal faster, until he's struggling just to stay on my tail.

"Hey, no fair!"

I slow for him, and in one strange moment I decide to reach out and say, "Grab..." and Oliver does, hooking the ends of our fingers, the board steady under him. He's expecting me to put his hand to the seat again but in another strange moment I decide not to—to keep hold of him, my palm open so he can let go if he wants. Again, he doesn't seem to think about it. His eyes and board are on the road, air whipping past his face and inside his hair; it's so long now it's down his neck, only a little shorter than mine.

Oliver lets go of my hand.

... _dammit._

Even so, I slow down to stay with him. He's making a hand-whale through the air. I watch it swim and swoop through air-waves at his fingertips, and his raglan shirt while it ripples violently against his torso and arms. He notices me squinting at him and drops his arm.

"Take the back," I instruct, chuckling. He does, grabbing my seat again. Bean runs ahead. "Where do you wanna go?" I call over my shoulder.

"Anywhere," Oliver replies, looking overwhelmed all of a sudden, but in a good way I think. "I don't care, man."

I head for home, not because I want this to be over but because it's the only place I know he likes the most. A street one over from home, however, I get an idea when I see the basketball hoop at the dead-end by the wall.

I drop my bike. Oliver's skateboard scrapes and he carries it under his arm—I think his knuckles are weird. They're bony and tanned and then blotchy white when he grips things. You can see his veins. They're blue, and sometimes, if he's been moving around a lot, they bulge, like veins in leaves and—

" _Hng_!"

—I trip over the bike.

Oliver grabs my sleeve and pulls, " _Andiamo, idiota._ "

I squint, cheeks flushing. He grabs the basketball left on the curb. As I'm aware I've never enjoyed basketball. I'm more into soccer, and even then, I think I just like the competition.

Luckily, Oliver seems to come to the same coda. He sits on the sidewalk and pushes Bean away when he tries to sit in his lap. A few panels away, Glenn is up on watch—we only notice because he calls out hello.

At some point, Oliver pulls his ukulele off and sets it next to him on the grass.

"Can you play something?" I ask, squinting at him.

He makes a noise. "I don't usually play in front of people."

"What about this," I propose, "I'll shoot some hoops and I won't even pay attention to you. It'll be like when you play normally, and I'm next door, and you don't even know I can hear you, and I won't even tell you how great it sounds, like I never do."

Oliver scratches his eyebrow goofily.

"No," he says, "I'm good, man."

"Come on," I insist. "For PT. It's a win-win for both of us, man."

Oliver shakes his head again, looking pretty miserable really. I haven't asked what happened today other than what he said, and I know enough not to ask, not yet at least. Sometimes I forget that Oliver works at his own pace, like when I asked him to sneak out with me to Lorton. It was too fast. Sometimes he needs to think about things before he shares.

I sigh. Relenting, I make myself useful and dribble the ball across the asphalt, lining up to the hoop. Miss. Then miss again, and again. Bean keeps grabbing the ball before I get to it and Oliver has to yell so he leaves it alone.

"Try throwing with your left arm," he says.

"Huh?"

"Ambidextrous, like you do when you shoot now. So it lines up with your eye."

"Oh, right."

"Left, actually."

"Screw you."

New method in play, I manage to put the ball through the hoop three times out of four. Oliver pretends not to be impressed, rolling his eyes. Only, the best part is that he's been playing his ukulele for a few minutes now. I don't recognise the tune but I know that I like it. It's soft and smooth and slow, and it makes me want to lie on my back in grass stems and close my eyes.

When he starts to sing, I have to remind myself to keep shooting, else he might stop.

 _"So I threw your letter into the flame  
And watched the fire regain  
And these words have done nothing for you  
As I did not read them through  
Now turned to ash in the flume..."_

And, God, I don't want him to stop.

 _"...And colours are dull  
As the feeling of the cold  
And memories fall  
As the fire is getting old..."_

He glances at me without moving his head a lot, and my stomach turns to pulp, and when he looks away he dips his head and shuts his eyes tight, doesn't even miss a beat.

 _"...And I once more am now..."_

Oliver's voice is smooth and low and soft, shifting tune sweet and easy. He sings quietly, really, only just louder than a whisper, but it's nice—it makes my heart ache. The strange word _mellifluous_ comes to mind, for some reason, but I can't remember where from.

 _"...Don't you fret, I'll find my way  
Carefully walking from the devil's plane  
And I know why you did not follow me  
Pride swallowed me, then led me astray_

 _And now the dark in me has now seen the day  
Oh, my chill has now lost its way  
And these hands that once had helped me to pray  
They are limp in utter dismay  
Oh, they fall in their disarray_

 _And colours are dull  
As the feeling of the cold  
And memories fall  
As the fire is getting old_

 _And I once more am now..."_

The song scatters apart slow and calm, and for a few minutes, Oliver messes with different strings, mumbling lyrics I can't hear, trailing until he's just plucking chords at random with the edge of his bandage to fill space.

He looks up at me.

I clear my throat. I remember my name. I remember I'm meant to be playing basketball but I'm just standing here with the ball under my arm. Oliver doesn't seem to mind. He puts the uke to the side and lays back into the grass-blades, picking seedlings.

I sit with him because he doesn't tell me not to.

"I learned this story the other day," he whispers, like he's rehearsed this. "Paula—one of them who took us, she told me and Carol about a girl who was having a hard time and wanted to give up. The girl tells her mom, so, her mom, she boils three pots of water, puts a carrot in one, an egg in the other, and ground coffee beans in the third. When they're done boiling, the mom says, _'They all went through the same thing, the carrot went in strong and came out soft, the egg was fragile and came out hard, but the coffee beans changed the water itself.'_."

I think about this for a few minutes.

I ask, "Which are you?"

"Not the coffee beans."

"Me neither," I say.

We aren't looking at each other. He thumbs gently at the scruff of Bean's neck.

"What if nobody really is the coffee beans?" I ask him. "What if the outbreak was? Because, I don't know, it changed the whole world. And, with the carrot and the egg? What if some of us aren't those either? What if we, just, don't have to be? What if we're like... salt or sugar?"

Oliver looks at me about as unimpressed as he was by my basketball skills.

"No, hear me out," I say, crossing my legs and sitting up straight. "Think about when you make your coffee in the morning."

"Not every morning."

"Some mornings."

"When I'm tired."

"You're always tired."

Oliver regards this. "One time I was so tired I put gravy in instead of coffee."

I grimace. "We're sorta getting off topic here, Oliver."

"Right. Right, sorry."

I laugh. I watch the small golden flecks spin in his eyes, catching the sunset. I take a deep breath and focus. "So, when you put the sugar i—"

"Or the salt."

" _Yes._ You put the sugar _or_ salt in the boiling water, right, mix it around some. And sometimes all the salt and sugar's all gone and sometimes you can still tell it's there by looking, right? It all depends on how much the water's boiled. How much it's mixed in. How much it's been through."

"I... guess?"

"So, the sugar and salt's adapted. It's changed. And some of it's the same and some of it's gotten lost along the way..." I see the way he tucks his amp-arm a little closer to his chest, the way his eyes flicker to my bandage and then back to me again. I swallow and keep talking: "But, it's always in there. Salt or sugar. You take a sip, you taste it. It's still salt. It's still sugar."

Oliver's face is relaxed now. All his bruises and cuts and scars. Relaxed all over.

"Like you, and like me," I go on, my voice relaxing, too. "We've been through it, and some parts of us have gotten lost on the way and we're not the same anymore, but we're still us."

Oliver is looking at me. I can't tell what he's thinking. I'm thinking about how the corner of his lip is burned and sore and the cut on his shoulder-blade sometimes leaves a red stain on his shirt and the scar on his temple and lip are never going away and he flinches when he looks at flowers sometimes. I'm thinking about how desperately I want him to feel better again, what I would do to take all the hurt away.

I have to get up because I feel like I might start screaming. He looks up at me, squinting even though the street is a dim pink and orange—his skin glows with it, even the bruises; a sad glow. I pass the ball and he catches it. He frowns at the rubber and then up at me, then passes it back.

"You gonna play?" I ask.

Oliver smiles. "Sure, man."

So, we play a game. Several, in fact. Oliver's bad with the ball but is sure footed. He can dodge and swivel all my ambushes. He'll steal the ball and score some goals but most bounce off the back-board. What I lack in sure-feet, I make up for in tactic. I think ahead of his dodges and catch him out, make a trick shot, then score while he's picking himself back up. Occasionally, he'll curse in Italian, and my cheeks turn to a furnace. Granted, the game _is_ a fair fight, frustrating too. We draw the whole time.

I don't curse a lot, only when I'm frustrated, like when I can't remember something or when Judith won't eat her food or when I can't find a bandage. Competition frustrates me, like the way Oliver is a little taller than me right now and the way most people except me can see with two eyes not one, or the way Oliver is doing better at basketball than me and is about to score again twice in a row, so, yeah, right now it's safe to say I'm a little frustrated.

"Fuck."

I manage to get the ball back, shoot... miss.

"Fuuuck!"

He's got the basketball, bolting so fast I twist around and grab at him. He swivels and dodges and keeps me off it, toying.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"Isn't your ass tired?" he asks.

"Who says it's _my_ ass?"

God, I don't know why I said that. Why did I say that?! Luckily, he finds it funny. Hilarious, actually, because he's laughing hard enough it's distracted him from me snatching the ball. He grabs it, against the rules, but I don't tell him so, we're just scuffing and yanking and grunting and I kiss him...

wait,  
that last one wasn't supposed to happen,

...I'm quickly learning that there are a fair amount of things that aren't supposed to happen that still happen anyway, like getting shot in the eye or bitten on the hand or killing your dead parents or kissing a boy you've forgotten you're falling for.

Oliver jerks back, his laughter swallowed at the back of his throat to die. Our hands are still tangled around the ball and he lets go of it, an arm coming up to my collar to hold me back.

"Woah... whoa, man, what're you doing?"

A wind picks up. It's fresh and cold. But I can't breathe. A part of his hair fans back, makes it messier than it already was. The collar of his shirt's been pulled down in our wrestling so that the bruise on his neck shows dark and purple. I'm looking at all of this because I'm too afraid to look at his face. Then I am too afraid to look at any part of him so I frown down at the road. The road has always been less frightening.

"Carl."

I'm brave (or stupid) enough to glance up at him. I catch heat blotching across his skin, even though it's cold this afternoon. Practice has kept us warm and panting, but the air is still cold. Our breath makes fog. I start shivering. Him, too. He looks mad, like he'll leave, maybe even lash out. I'm so sure I've ruined it, ruined everything, because I am weak and selfish and kidding myself.

And then he steps forward into me. I startle. I rise on my toes. And he grabs me. This kiss is fast like the last. Fast enough that I don't have time to untangle my thoughts or react. All I'm aware of is the faint taste of blood on his lip, and the warmth, and then Oliver has pulled back and I'm so far away that my eyes are still closed and I haven't let go of the basketball yet.

He snatches it and scores another goal.

"I win."

I just nod because _yes, he has_. I haven't moved yet. I have to come down from that. I have to swallow the laugh away from my throat, shake the stun from my expression, all before he notices.

"Hey."

"Hmm?"

"You still playing, man?"

I catch the ball when he throws it, rolling it over in my hand.

"Erm. Yeah," I answer. "Yeah I am."

Another game. I win this time. When the game ends, Oliver decides to leave his stuff inside the second house. Sasha and Abraham were inside talking, but we didn't stay long to disturb them.

Oliver climbs on the back of my bike, his feet on the wheel bars and his stomach leant to my back, and we ride. His hand grips my shoulder, and when I pick up speed and better balance, he lets go, stretching out both arms like wings. I glance back at him. His head is tipped back and his eyes are shut and his hair flies around his face. His fingers shake against the air. And his grin. It's wide open, like... like he's having the time of his life all because of _me_. And he either thinks looking like that is a safe idea for my focus or he _intends_ for me to pedal right into the side of the _Astoundingly Ugly_ car.

* * *

Later, we're at the solar panels. It's darker, but the community is still that strange, orange-gold, sunset colour; the pinks and purples fading now.

I've got a bruise on my knee and forearm, cuts and grazes on my knuckle, and I hit the handle bars so hard my _children_ will be infertile. Oliver came off with nothing worse than a bruised hip. Though, he _has_ already been bruised today; kidnapped and beaten, he explained, very briefly. The bruise on his jaw and neck are sore-looking, from the cold, I think.

We should have gone to the clinic, but it felt wrong going there again, so we shook it off and headed here to the panels, lying side by side under the second row back to recuperate. It's cold. Freezing, almost. But home seems too final and out on the street seems too open and so under here seems like the most comfortable place. When we look up, we can see the street, and when we look down we see the side of the clinic. Occasionally people leave it, walking home from Denise's extended funeral.

We're both shivering violently, teeth chattering, but neither of us complain. Oliver is pressing his palm to the underside of the solar panel. It's cold when I do it, too. I put my hands under my armpits to warm them. Oliver mimics me with his own hands and armpits. I look at him. He looks at me. We look like we're about to kiss again.

I do not know how to kiss. I mean, I know that I have before—I know that I've kissed him. But the memory of how has never returned clear to me. Even with all those nights, picturing it in my head with my hand in my underwear, it was only ever imagination over memory. Even now. I don't know how to kiss. I am just a boy who forgot; how to kiss and how to touch and how to... If I knew how to kiss I would kiss him all the time. I would kiss him on his lips and on his nose and on his hair. I would kiss him on the couch and in his bed and on the roof. I'd kiss him until I forgot what the sun felt like, what the moon looked like, until I'd forgotten the colour of the sky and the sounds of the birds and the crickets and the trees and the walkers.

I'd kiss him until I died.

How do you know which way to tilt your head?

"Turns out I'm kind of blind," Oliver says, and we do not kiss because he looks away.

"Yeah?" I ask, aware of how numb my back is and how achy my parts still are. I realise what he just said. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah... Can't see right."

"Me neither," I reply. "Only left."

Oliver sighs.

Very softly, he says, "Your puns give me hope, man."

I grin at the solar panel.

He takes a deep breath and says, "Short sighted," like he's introducing himself. And I say, " _Half_ sighted." And he realises what I'm doing and holds out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Half." And I take it and say, "You, too, Short." We shake—wrong hands. It doesn't matter because it makes him laugh. The high pitched, giggly kind of laugh that I don't think I've ever heard from him before.

"Wait," Oliver says, "doesn't that mean we'd have the same surname?"

"Oh. Yeah, guess it would."

He tries not to find this funny or ironic. I get so nervous I start laughing. Oliver shoves me. I shove him back.

"I don't mind if we have the same surname," I say, turning to face him. I get this question in my head wondering if bravery and stupidity might just be the same thing after all. If maybe you have to be stupid to be brave, the same way you have to be scared to be brave. Or maybe, in a way, you also have to be brave enough to allow yourself to be stupid, but just sometimes. Maybe we can choose it. Choose to let go and to feel things you're not meant to feel.

I sit on his chest and yell in his face, "I love you," but it comes out like, "Sorry." Regardless of fear and bravery and stupidity, Oliver says back, "Sorry."

I frown. "Why?"

"You might still be sore."

Quiet takes me over. We're just panting and looking at each other, looking in that way, like we're about to kiss.

Again, we don't.

It is decided because I am neither brave or stupid this time.

A few yards away, through the gap under the solar panel row, two pairs of feet walk by, unaware of us. It's Maggie and Michonne. They just left the clinic. They talk about stocking the gun-bins, start in the morning, and they go past and head home, taking Bean with them when he wonders out to greet them. I look back to Oliver. He looks up at me too, and swallows.

"I think I'm still sore, too."

 _Sore from what?_ I ask in my head. _Sore because of today? Sore because of us? Or sore because your nuts just collided with handlebars at high speed, too?_ I don't say a word. I get nervous thinking about his nuts so I climb off and sit next to him. He sits up and scotches closer. He's warm. I pretend not to notice, but it's hard because he slings his arm over my shoulder.

His stomach growls and he cringes.

"Hungry?"

He groans.

"When did you last eat anything?" I ask.

"Did you know you shut your eyes when you shoot a gun?"

I frown. "Never really thought about it. Guess it just sort of happens."

"Can't help it."

A part of me is wondering if he's not only talking about shooting but us— _us_ just sort of happens—can't help _us._ I ignore that theory, or, try to, only he takes my hand and holds it tight.

"It's just how it works," he whispers.

I don't remember falling for him. Not the first time. Or the second. I'm starting to believe that I've never fallen for him in any one moment at all. It's more like I've fallen again and again over time, like it might've just always been there. It doesn't make sense, I know. It never has. All I do know is that right now we are sitting in the grass under the solar panels, cold and muddled and bruised, and he's telling me useless facts and I'm listening to them because I want to, and I am holding his hand and realising that it's going to feel like the worst thing in the world when I have to let go.

And it is.

It really, really is.

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

Later at home, Carol's made oatmeal. Sasha and Abraham are out, so it's just us. "Try to eat," I'm told, sitting at the kitchen island. It's getting dark out. Lizzie's watch tells me it's eight-twenty, but the alarm clock on the oven says _20:27_ —this bothers me more than it should.

"Oliver?"

I look away from the clock. I was thinking about today.

"Eat..."

I frown at my bowl but don't wait for her to tell me again. I shovel another mouthful, keep it in my mouth a minute, then swallow. It's a bad day. Keeping it down is hard, with an audience is worse. Throwing up is like reflex, like keeping your eye open while shooting, or like kissing a boy you're trying not to still be in love with. I have to concentrate on keeping it in, else it ruins things and something bad comes along to take it away.

"Why don't you ever invite Tobin here?" I ask when I don't feel sick anymore. "Could eat with us both? I wouldn't have a problem with it."

The silence is miserable.

"I think he's goofy and tall and awkward," I go on, "but he's alright. Nice to you. And he helped Enid fix the shelf in the pantry a couple months ago. Maybe he could help me fix my window. Plus... if he ate here I wouldn't have to eat alone."

"Oliver, you're not eating alone."

"I am, Carol."

Avoiding an argument, I scoop another mouthful.

"I don't mind," I lie. When I gag I have to stop. I tip forward and hold my mouth and scrunch my eyes and tap my foot on the stool footrest. _Don't yack. Don't yack._

Carol waits for my eyes to open, watching me like she might cry. I don't know what I look like but I know it's not good. I know I'm scaring her. I know she's back-tracking through all the meals she's made me in the last week and remembering all the times Bean didn't finish his own food because he wasn't hungry. All the times I said I'd already eaten.

Three days of it.

Three days of starving myself.

Three days of lying to her face.

"I'm reading this new book," I say in her silence, desperate to fill it. I usually like our silences, but this not evening. "I finished _This Book is Full of Spiders_ yesterday at Enid's. I'm meant to be reading Wizard of Oz next, but..." I shake my head. "But, there's this one book I stashed under the stairs a few months ago and forgot about—because, you know, apparently I'm like a squirrel with its nuts when it comes to books. But anyway, yeah. I'm reading that now.

The book's kinda about this woman. Clare. She was this virgin Saint. Italian, from _Comune Di Assisi_ , which is where half of my family's from, so it's kind of why I picked up the book in the first place.

Saint Clare, she foundered the Order of Poor Ladies and wrote this _Rule of Life_ thing, which was like the first monastic rule written by a woman... and... err."

She's staring off into space.

"Sorry. It's... kinda boring."

"No, no." Carol snaps out of it. "Sorry. Keep going."

"Um, well, the story I'm reading is a fiction about a girl called Nancy, who meets Saint Clare. Nancy's only thirteen but she's had to do all this horrible stuff to keep her and her baby brother alive. But, her brother died, and after everything she'd done to keep him safe she couldn't take it, so she ran away.

Other stuff happens, she bounces around a lot, not really coming or going anywhere, but the round-up of it all is that she somehow winds up in this place, a good place, but she's totally changed after all the terrible things she's seen.

She thinks she's too far gone to be saved.

It's almost too late

But Saint Clare helps her, brings her back."

Carol has gone away again.

"Sorry." I purse my lips. "I just... like the story."

When she looks back at me, the side of her lips twitch up. "What?"

I don't talk to her.

"I'm... I'm sorry. I'm just... a little tired." She's frowning. It's meant to be another smile.

"Carol?"

"Hm?"

"Are you okay?" I ask. "Don't say you have to be. That isn't answering the question."

Hours, just as we left Lorton with the horse on our tails, I'd said, "It's got big eyes, huh?" and Carol smiled down at the tracks, then squinted at me and said, "You've got big eyes..." and I laughed and asked, "What?" and she just said, "Sometimes your eyes look so big they're overwhelming." I'm not really sure if it was a compliment or not. At the time it felt like it, but now? Not so much.

She looks at me again and her eyes look silver and rusty.

"I need to make sure you'll be okay."

I frown and sit up. "What?"

"I'm not gonna be around forever," she tells me. "You know that, don't you? Oliver... please?"

"Yes," I say. "People die." The table feels too far away, suddenly, so I hit it with my fist. "Quit that! Quit going on about it like I don't know—I do know, I've seen it—we both have—you don't have to make me say it."

I don't know why I'm having a panic attack. Sometimes they just happen. Sometimes I get a pain in my forehead and my body tries to convince me it's an aneurysm.

I cup either side of my face and try to do my breathing exercises.

"You can _stop,_ " I whisper finally. "You can stop, Carol."

Her head dips miserably.

"I can't," she whispers.

I finish the bowl.

"I won't be okay," I tell her, "of course I won't, and neither will you when I die—"

"Don't say..."

"—but that's just how it works. We... we face our shit."

She seems to consider this.

She says, "It's past your bedtime."

I almost laugh. "It's like an entire month past my bedtime."

Her eyes narrow.

"You know, I pray before I sleep now," I decide to tell her, cheek against table top, looking at her again. She smiles. It's her possum smile but not entirely. Some of it is genuine. Some _very small_ part. I hold onto that. "Sometimes," I admit, "if I remember to. Sometimes I just forget, and, sometimes... sometimes I just don't."

She watches me, knowing full-well that I'm procrastinating. It's just... I don't want her to go tonight. I want her to stay here and not go to Tobin's. Just for tonight. I want to curl up with her on the couch and listen to her voice and forget that today happened for a while. But she picks up my empty bowl and stands up.

"Baby, go say your prayers."

Dissatisfied and stubborn, I slip off of my chair and wander to the staircase. I get ready for bed. I'm about ready to turn in when there's a knock on my window. It's Carl. Some huge flutter kills me and I'm stunned for a second until he waves me over rather frantically. I go into Noah's room and open the window, and then I'm getting dragged out of it by my pyjama sleeve.

"Carl, what the hell?" I ask, keeping my voice down.

"You have to come with me."

"Wh... what?"

He, too, is in his pyjamas, though at least he has a pair of sneakers. He helps me down, which is difficult, but manageable.

"Oliver, come on."

"I will, I will. But why?"

"It's Enid."

"What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing, I'm pretty sure—I mean, I just think she's had too much to drink."

I find this both funny and concerning. "She drank it all?"

"I thought she would put them in the pantry."

"Jesus."

"Just, come on, and keep it down."

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Untitled_ by Matt Corby. Also, thank you, **Blood on my Machete** , for pretty much writing the salt and coffee conversation for me! That was so beautiful! I may or may not have used 500 tweaked words of the basketball kiss for a sample applying to university back in April. Yup. Worked though, I guess.

Tbt Carol at Sophia S1E6 "Baby, go say your prayers."  
Carol at Oliver S6E14 "Baby, go say your prayers."

Also, I'm just gonna pretend that Carol said her name was Nancy from Montclair when she met the Saviours because she remembered Nancy in Oliver's book who met _Saint Clare_ (which isn't a real book but Saint Clare was a real woman – she probably wouldn't be happy about being mentioned in fanfiction...) so Carol just tweaked it, or maybe remembered it wrong, since she was spacing out PTSD style the same way she did with Tobin when he talked about Denise

Happy reading.


	23. I Do I Promise

**Guest** your review astounded me. Thanks.

 **The Sorrowful Deity** Too real *breathes heavily

 **TheDarkerSide123** I sort of just assumed you knew it was for this, forever aiming to emotionally traumatise readers.

 **RHatch89** Thank you.

 **Blood on my Machete** guess they share bikes in Alexandria? yes, Morgan and Oliver will interact in the VERY near future. thanks for your review and support.

 **Rolochan** I think I'm a terrible person. Your pun was gold. Yeah, Oliver definitely is afraid to be close to him or anybody again at the moment. It's complicated. I LOVE the game. Clem is the best. Anyway, thank you. I wish you luck and happiness, too!

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** *wipes tears* thank you

* * *

 _CW:_ _Turn away now if you hate complicated Caliver feels because oh boy there's a bunch in this one... also mild lemons?_

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _No was her name  
No was the lion that no-one could tame  
But Faith was his name  
Faith came around with a smile on his face anyway_

 _He said, "Tell, tell me now,  
Tell me the worry that knit up your brow"_

 _She said, "Slow down this train,  
Slow down the iron that runs in my veins"..._

* * *

The sun has set, with the last slithers of blue light left in the sky. Rick wanted Carl to grab some apples from the pantry before bed, but when he got there, Enid was there, lying under a shelf.

"Scared the crap out of me. Enid wouldn't let me get Olivia, said she wanted you... Look, just, come on. We should hurry."

On arrival, Olivia's hesitant to let us in. "It's late, boys. Enid's probably asleep. Why do you need to see her so urgently?" Carl and I get around having to tattle by saying we'd planned to watch a movie. Olivia gets ready for bed and Carl and I help Enid into her shoes and out of the house. She calls me "Ollie-wallie," and I tell her "Shush," before she hurts herself.

"My pocket."

"Enid, what?"

"Scab."

"Why do you have a scab in your pocket?!"

"No, _Scab._ "

There's a meow.

"Enid, you brought it with us?"

Enid giggles and nods. We're at our street, lugging Enid when her knees give out a little. She half-strangles me to scratch her nose.

"Dad and Michonne are home, so not mine."

"Come on," I say. "Mine." We get onto the porch. I walk ahead and open the door, and then I back-up and leave, shaking my head. "Nope. Not mine either."

"What?" Carl grunts. "Why?"

"Err, Abraham's having sex."

"With who?!"

I shrug. "Sasha, I think—I don't fucking know, just _come on_."

"What about Carol?" Carl asks.

"She's with Tobin." While we walk across the street, Enid blows a raspberry on my cheek. I tell her to stop so she dies. My cut hand's stinging so I readjust it. "Anyway, Carol knows I won't go anywhere."

"Wait," Carl asks, "where are—Enid, don't put your foot there. Oliver, where are we going?"

I realise I am in fact going _somewhere._ Somewhere I've been avoiding for seven months now. The empty house. I inhale.

"Come on. Hurry, before anybody sees us."

* * *

Inside, it's hard not to think that I haven't been here in almost eight months. I look at the walls and the dust and the furniture like nostalgic old friends. We set Enid on the couch. Carl grabs Scab before she squashes it and sets it in a small cardboard box next to the coffee table. Bean pokes his nose inside and jumps back when he's scratched. Still, the kitten settles when we put a blanket down. Bean leaves it alone; he'll occasionally try to hold it in his mouth but learns to stop after a few cat-slaps.

"Guys," I say, "mind if I shave?"

"There's a set upstairs," Carl says.

"You knew?"

He shrugs. "I come here sometimes."

"Oh…"

"Didn't move anything," he says, "don't worry."

I should tell him I'm not worrying, at all, but I just go upstairs instead. Enid decides it's the best idea in the world to follow me; holding the hem of my pyjama shirt to do so, so that I have to hoist us up with the banister. She sits in the bathtub with Scab asleep in her lap.

I keep sneezing.

"I think you're allergic," Enid says.

Another sneeze as I start lathering my face, sniffing with a blocked nose and watering eyes. By chance, when I flip the mirror cupboard open there is a small strip of allergy tablets wish a few inside. I take them.

"I'll look after Scab," Enid tells me. "Olivia's kind of obsessed with cats."

 _So are you,_ I'm tempted to say.

"Hey, I got you a surprise," I tell her, chin stretched up and half way through shaving now; the shaved parts are bruised and sore, but I'm in too far to stop now. I wet the razor in the sink and look at her through the mirror. "I brought back some stuff, comics mostly. One's about famous stories told from a distance, so, like comic strips with dots for people and big speech bubbles saying: _'Where for art thou Romeo?'_ or _'Follow the yellow brick road.'_ The second's a Spiderman and Deadpool crossover—ignore the doodles I made though. I, uh, kinda shipped them pretty hard. Anyway, the third and fourth are King City and Daytripper."

"What else did you bring?"

"Err… a carving _Nonno_ made, some inhalers, jewelry, and Pat's spare glasses."

"You brought back your brother's glasses?"

I shrug.

"What was your grandpa's carving of?"

I avoid answering by shaving more.

"I think I know, actually. Nell told me. It's a deer, isn't it?"

It is, but I don't say so.

"What jewelry?"

"Enid..."

She takes the hint so I keep shaving, sneezing a few more times.

"I talked to him," Enid says. "Carl."

Finishing up, I just sniff so she knows I'm listening.

"He made me hot coco, said sorry, for what happened in the forest." She strokes the kitten's neck. Its teeth are clamped into her hoodie. _I'm wondering how I feel about that cat._ Enid says, "I talked to him about what you and me have been doing."

I cut my cheek on accident. "You _what_?"

She shrugs.

"It's okay. He just wanted to know."

I'm frowning. "So, he…he knows, about, what happened yesterday?"

"No, no. It was a few days ago that we talked about it, that hadn't happened yet."

I sigh.

"I spoke to Carol about it, today," I confess, "just her. I… felt bad, wanted to talk to somebody—see if I did anything wrong."

"You didn't," Enid explains. She shakes her head.

I look at my reflection, sigh, and wash my face.

"You're my best friend," Enid says, like it's a complaint.

I scoff. "Glad you're so happy about it."

"No, I mean, you are," she says. "It makes me feel bad, a little."

"Why?" I ask, even though I know.

"What you said last week. It was true. You _are_ my favourite, but… I'm not yours."

"I'm sorry," I say.

"No, no," she says. "I'm not saying that because I'm mad about it or anything, don't worry. Really. It's just the truth, you know? 'Cause it's him. It just always has been."

I think about the basketball game earlier today and it makes my face twitch.

Enid giggles. "See?"

"You're drunk, Tink."

"You want him."

I shush her because I can hear him in the spare room next door.

Enid takes a steep breath, like a hiccup.

"There's a difference between wanting someone and _wanting_ someone," she explains. "You can want someone, sure, but you can also just _want_ someone. Like, want them around. Want them in your life."

I dry my face.

"Also want to get in their pants, too, though," she adds, and it's this moment that Carl pokes his head into the door, an empty glass in his hand. He's fidgeting.

Enid grins up at him, "Oops."

"Thought some water would be a good idea," Carl says.

I step back to let him fill the glass, my face and palm hot.

"I want to sleep," Enid says, pull my jeans leg so that I wobble and have to catch myself against the side of the tub. She collects up the kitten and Carl and I help her out and next door. The bed's still made; I don't remember doing it, but I know it was me.

I think a lot of things while we get Enid comfortable. I think about the dust bunnies in the corner of the room, about the rag still hung over the closet door handle where it was left to dry. I think of all the times Carl and I laid with our backs to the floor and our feet up against the wall, our shins crossed and our fingers interlocked, talking the sun back into the sky. I think about how in the drawer to the right is a yoyo, and in the drawer to the left there's a bottle of water, a salt rock, and about a million, loose and neglected post-it notes that say things like _'_ _I LOVE YOU MORE THAN PUDDING AND GRAPES'_ and _'PROPERTY OF C. GRIMES'_ but most of them were drawings of me and the drawer on the right was just where I always put them when I'd wake up with them stuck to me. Still, of all the things I think about the most, it's how this is the bedroom in which Carl and I lost our virginity together—not _in_ the bed though, which helps me feel better for some reason.

"Are you going to sleep, Enid?"

She nods, setting down the glass after Carl insisted she drink some. Bean is curled up under her arm, the kitten under his tail. Everything in order, I exit the room.

"Whoa, hey, are you leaving?" Carl follows, pulling the door shut behind him.

"No," I say. "Not yet. I'll stay until she's sobered up a little, then I'll take her back home."

"I'll stay with you," Carl says. "Maybe Abraham and Sasha will be done by then."

" _Hope_ so."

Carl grins. "She'll be okay, right?"

"Yeah, man."

* * *

Downstairs in the kitchen, Carl and I hang out in quiet for a while. After today, my feet are sore and my face still hurts a lot—a lot of things still hurt a lot.

Carl is sitting across from me on the counter. He, too, looks miserable. He catches me looking at him and holds his hand out, making a small "Gimmie." I get up and hand him my glass of water. There's an elephant in the room, I know. As time passes, it gets worse, until finally, Carl speaks.

"Did you guys sleep together?"

Suddenly the quiet doesn't seem so bad anymore.

"You said, something," he elaborates, "before. Sounded like it was more than just... you know."

I nod very quickly. He nods very quickly, too.

"So, you're…"

"N…No."

He frowns. "So, you do it but you don't like each other?"

I just shrug awkwardly.

"Is that what earlier was?" he asks his hands. "The... you know."

 _You're not meant to talk about it,_ I think, _I don't know what I'm doing._

He looks away.

I look away, too.

"You're scared?"

"No," I say. "I'm not scared."

"I… I think you are," Carl says, like _he's_ admitting it. "I think you're scared of how you feel because you try so hard not to feel anything at all."

 _God. He's so arrogant. He's so cocky._ _When did that happen? Why am I even letting it happen?!_ _  
_ ** _Because you like it._**

"Asshole," I growl.

I can't even look at him.

"We're going around in circles," Carl says, shaking his head—I see it out the corner of my eye.

"No," I say, "we're _not_. This doesn't have to be so freaking _complicated_. Just... Just..."

" _Be?_ Just be, right?"

" _Yes…_ "

He's right, we _are_ going around in circles—we're going in the same damn direction, and then we're busting up laughing together, cracking up into each other's shirts.

"You should kiss me again," he says—just five words and I forget where I left my tongue. "C'mere, Oliver." He isn't looking at my face but under it at my chest, like he's watching something inside it.

My mouth is dry.

"I… I don't know, man," I say, only it gets stuck between my teeth, tangled around my canines.

"It's okay," Carl replies, "Come here." I can't tell if I should be disappointed in myself or not, but I do what he says. I put the glass of water in the sink next to him—I leave a clammy print on the glass. My heart is beating too fast.

 _What am I doing?  
Shit.  
What the hell am I doing?_

"I'm not scared of you," I tell him.

"I never said you were."

I watch him, feeling goofy and dumb.

"Here. Get closer," he suggests. I do, stepping between his knees—thinking very hard about encyclopedias and walkers and steel-beam walls. Carl's grin is shameless. "Not so bad, huh?" he asks.

I'm frowning. I'd forgotten this, how quickly my brain switches off around him like this, how badly he can have me biting back his name without even trying. Carl shakes his head, like he can't believe something. He finds it funny. His arms come up around my shoulders and we stay like this for a few minutes.

"Nervous," I tell him.

He frowns. "Why? We kissed already."

"You kissed me first."

"You kissed me second."

"Kiss me again and I won't kiss you at all."

I don't know why I said that. I'm having a heart attack. And then he does kiss me and it's clumsy and awkward and I don't kiss him back. Don't even close my eyes. I laugh, amazed. Carl stops. He says, "Sorry," except I pull him back to me. "Don't be," I say. And he says, "It doesn't have to mean anything, not if you don't want," and I don't say anything because I'm afraid of what he'd do if I did. He kisses me. He kisses me and he says, "Nobody even needs to know."

He kisses me again. I bring my hand up and touch his bandage—I don't know why. It spooks him, and he jerks back, but he lets me do it again. I pull it off. I kiss it. And he's just watching me do that.

"You shouldn't let me kiss you like this," I confess.

"Why?" he asks, breathless.

"Feels… Feels good."

"Good, man." He pulls me closer, gripping hard and heavy around my waist. "That's good."

A grimace twists my expression, and then I kiss him, hard, mad. He kisses me back harder, grabbing me, which hurts and I flinch. "Sorry." "No. Don't stop." "But—" " _Shut up._ " When I yank him off of the counter, he curses. I stumble back, crashing into the fridge at the same time his palms catch us. Startled, we stare at each other, close but not too close. I think and I think _I want him._ God, I do.

It's him who pulls me back in, and when we kiss again, it kills me.

The next thing I know, we collapse to the floor and tangle in a messy heap under the dishwasher. I push his back to the tiles, my knees around his ribcage, and then nothing matters anymore because his fingers are tangled in my hair and my face is buried in his pyjama pants, and I am so far away, so deeply into him, and then — _and then_ — someone is coming down the stairs.

Just as Bean wanders around the counter, Carl and I pull apart and yank up our pants, breathless and sweaty, with stretched pyjamas that're damp in odd and inappropriate places. Carl is blinking. I laugh. I can also hear Enid coming, so I adjust my pyjamas and Carl twists himself around to sit across from me, buttoning up his flannel shirt. He glances up at me, his eye black. My hair must be crazy so I try to neaten it, but it just hurts my hand—somehow I managed to lose my bandage.

When Enid shuffles around the staircase, she groans into her palm.

"Hey," I say. "How're you feeling?"

"Like someone just poured porridge in my brain."

"Nah." I clear my throat. "Just whiskey."

She puts her forehead to the banister and moans.

"Are you okay?" Carl asks her.

"Fine."

"Are you sure? You were drinking."

Her forehead is still pressed to the banister. "I'm okay." She stands up straight, shakes her head, and takes a deep breath. "I think we should go, before anybody worries."

We all gather up Scab, Bean, and whatever else we brought, and then we're walking Enid back to the pantry. The sky is black and starry.

"Buy, guys."

"Night."

"Go easy, Enid."

She disappears inside the pantry. Carl walks me home, making small talk about music, and when to my place we stop outside and I'm thinking he's expecting me to kiss him again. I'm thinking he's going to want to talk inside. And worst of all I'm thinking I'm going to have to. But I'm wrong. Though, only by a few details. We do kiss, but he wasn't expecting it, and we do go inside, but we don't do a whole lot of talking. We go up to my room and he asks me what we're going to do and I tell me we're going to have sex, if he wants to.

"Yeah," he tells me.

 _it just sort of happens  
can't even help it_

He climbs between my legs and I unbutton his flannel shirt.

 _like shutting your eyes while shooting a gun  
it's just how it works_

And I tell him back, "That's good." And later, when it's over, he bumps my fist and I pull on my underwear and he says, "Later, man," and I say, "Sure thing." And then he's leaving the second house and I'm staring up at my ceiling, and that's all.

Only, it's absolutely everything too.

* * *

 **~The Second Letter Carol Never Sent~**

* * *

Oliver.

I'm sorry I almost woke you. I didn't mean to. Thinking back, I should have just left, I know that, I do. But I couldn't bring myself to. Not to you. I had to say goodbye, even if you would never fully know it.

You were so settled. Breathing slow and steady.

Do you mean to leave your stereo on when you sleep?

I kissed your temple and touched your hand. Under your palm, I felt something small and wooden. A carving of some kind. I took it and placed it on your bedside table. You let me brush your fringe out of your eyes. You were so tired. So calm. You could hardly open your eyes.

"Baby, go back to sleep," I told you. And I don't know why it was so important in that moment to you, but you told me that you loved me, and I told you that I loved you, too. "I do," I whispered. "I promise."

You know; through everything, you and I have never told each other that. Not so directly, at least. There's always been other words to replace it or a door or banister or wall between us. Even now, I suppose there was something between us. You didn't even know I was there.

Still, hearing you say it killed me, Oliver.

It really did.

I wanted so badly to stay. Want so much it destroys me. And that's exactly why I have to go.

You felt it, I know that, because when I slipped away from your fingers, you cried, even in your sleep. I watched you and I prayed for you to forget me. I know you won't. I know you _can't_. But I prayed for you anyway. Prayed like you do.

I hope He listens this time.

I know that before I wondered if it was hard for you, to go. If it was difficult to leave. I thought it wouldn't be. I thought, after everything, it would get easier like practice, or that maybe when I did it myself it would be easier, but I was wrong.

Walking out of those gates. Starting up that car. Leaving you behind.

It was the hardest thing I will ever do.

...

Oliver.

I'm sorry I almost woke you. I didn't mean to.

I love you.

I do. I promise.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Kitchen Door_ by Wolf Larson. Carol is meant to be like No and Oliver, Faith.

Confession: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING. They aren't back together. Not even close. It just happened. Let's just not talk about what a mess of Caliver I am making, yes?

 **Preview: Carol is gone and Oliver is definitely not okay with it.**

As always,  
Happy reading.


	24. East, Part 1: Empty

**RHatch89** ^_^

 **DampishPoet** Sorry *hugs

 **AGGXX5** thank you, I hope you like it ^.^

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** thankyousomuch

 **Blood on my Machete** I love your reviews so much I wish I had more time to write how much I do thank you infinitely!

 **Anna Katharyn** Ahhh, I'm sorry xD

 **yozza** Your faith in my is astounding. I hope I don't disappoint.

 **NoisySunday** Ugh, you hit that right on the nail agh thank you I love you your reviews are amazing thank you!

 **The Flash Fanatic** I'm tryyyyiiiinnnnggggggg. But they won't listen to me! They just throw machetes and pecans and empty pudding cans at me!

* * *

Fuck, okay, late, I know, and right now I have like no time to upload this and I'm pretty sure this library is going to give me a freaking panic attack but here you go...

* * *

 _CW: mentions of self harm_

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

Another day.

 _Fuck._

Waking up is stressful. It usually is. And it has sort of just become a habit of mine to relieve that stress by doing that _thing_ people do when they're alone and pent-up and have a spare few minutes. I don't know if this is normal but quite frankly I'm not worried. At all. It isn't exactly the _worst_ habit I have. So I get to it; groggily and drowsily and half-mindedly reaching into my pyjama pants, thinking about things that don't need to be explained in words but may or may not be heavily inspired by what happened between me and a boy yesterday night. Only, just a few seconds into it, when I tip my head to the side to get more comfortable, I suddenly notice Enid sleeping right beside me.

A sharp, "Gah!" leaves my mouth and my hand comes out of my pants immediately.

Startled, Enid jolts awake, though before she's even opened her eyes I've shoved myself off of my own bed and hit the floor with a grunt, and for a moment, I stare in shock and horror up at the ceiling, but at the last second I flip over onto my front to spare my dignity.

She peers over the mattress.

"Morning," I say.

"...Hi?"

She must've crept in here sometime this morning –I sneeze– brought that stupid kitten with her, too. I see it, over by Bean in the corner of the bedroom quite indignantly wrapping its whole body around his nose. Bean is staring at me, but doesn't dare move. He's either terrified of the furry feline or they must've figured out their differences, either way it's cute, really, either way I'm still laid across my floor with a semi pressing into the carpet...

Another sneeze.

"So, how'd you sleep?"

"Fine."

Pause.

"When – when did you get here?"

She shrugs. "Little while ago. Scab wouldn't stop howling. I think he likes Bean."

Outside, the sun is barely poking over the horizon. I hold my breath a second. "He?"

"Oh, well, we're still not sure. So, sometimes it switches, depending. I don't know."

I nod.

"So, what're you doin' on the floor?"

"Nothing – I mean, uh, something... I dropped my inhaler."

I'm reaching underneath, feigning search, but then Enid reaches down and hands it to me from under my pillow where I always keep it at night, and she'd grinning, because apparently Enid still knows everything.

"Look," I say, and I'm shutting my eyes and trying not to let my cheeks burn right off of my face, "just, could you just, not look, for a sec."

She rolls over onto her back.

"Don't look."

"It's not like I haven't alr–"

"Just _don't,_ okay?"

She laughs and tips her head to the wall. "Okay, okay. I won't. Swear."

Very quickly, I head into the bathroom to wash –among other things which don't take very long, and when I get back into my bedroom Enid is dressed into (mostly my) clean clothes and is playing with Scab on the window ledge.

I make my bed.

"You look better."

"Huh?"

As answer, Enid points in my general direction. I'm only wearing a towel around my waist. Usually I would cover up more but there really isn't an awful lot of me that Enid hasn't seen before.

"No I don't," I say, and I'm not being modest or anything like that, it's the truth. My skin is bruised and parts around my mouth are still burned, and you can see my ribs and hip-bones the same way you can see fire in night-time. If anything, I look like I should be dead.

"I don't mean like that," she explains. "I mean just _you_ in general. You seem... relaxed."

"How's that?" I ask dismissively, collecting clothes.

"I don't know, you just do."

"...okay."

"You gonna tell me why?"

I'm tempted to tell her, "I was screwed into another dimension last night," but instead I just say, "I should get dressed."

She's smirking.

"What?"

"Look, I don't even care if it's platonic, romantic, sexual, or whatever," she says, "just make sure it _is_. Okay?"

"Enid, I have no idea what you're talking about," I lie, and with a pair of pale blue rolling eyes, she takes the kitten and tells me she'll come find me later, and then she's gone, so I dress; hiking boots, cuffed grey jeans, old grey beanie (I'm still pretty pissed that I'll never see my Peter Pan beanie again) and a T-shirt –Enid took my last clean striped shirt (in truth it might have been one of hers) so I've had to wear my least favourite shirt that I'd stashed in my junk drawer months ago, and I only found it again because I'd emptied the whole drawer last night to put all of my stuff from Lorton in.

The shirt says:

 _'YOU NEED  
JESUS  
JUST SAYING'_

Noah scavenged it after he'd found out about my Agnosticism. Only, when I grab it out now, I see that somebody (God fucking dammit, Enid!) has written in the words _Paul Rovia_ between the lines, and added, _praise his fluorescent orifices, amen,_ in the corner. I may or may not have mentioned something about his eyes to her a few days back that she found far too amusing, so now it reads:

 _'YOU NEED  
paul  
JESUS  
rovia  
JUST SAYING_

 _...praise his fluorescent orifices, amen.'_

Carol sometimes does Daryl's laundry, so I put on one of his button ups that he hasn't collected yet to hide my T-shirt. The flannel is dark green and massive on my lanky scrawn; gaping around the collar and hanging low enough I could probably walk around without jeans on and still be protecting most of my dignity, and the sleeves are hanging over my hand and amp, but I don't care much. Plus, I'm not risking the personal ridicule I'll experience without it.

Rolling up the sleeves -a lot- I take Bean and go find Carol on Tobin's porch. It's ridiculously early. Dawn has hardly even started yet, but there's always a chance she's already awake. I'm going to show her the _Nancy's Saint Clare_ book and read out a quote from it that Saint Clare said to Nancy: _"We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing."_

Only, when I arrive at Tobin's porch all I find on the swing is her ashtray. It's full. Carol usually empties it before she starts smoking every day, and it's too early for her to have already finished, let alone started, really. Still, I'm aware of the sour tug in my gut.

I touch the ash with my finger and push.

The swing _creeks._

Empty.

Instead of waiting, like I'd planned, I back away, turning quickly and retreating off of the porch.

"Was gonna see if I could talk to her, too."

I almost startle, snapping my head up to see Morgan stood on the grass by the solar panels. He'd been practicing his martial arts. I swallow, fidget, wipe the ash off of my finger on the hem of Daryl's shirt.

"Yeah," he says slowly as if I'd replied to him, a hand rising to the top of his staff to lean on it. His face twists into a squint against the dawn. "Didn't see her either."

I don't say anything.

Morgan dips his head, gripping his staff tightly for a second. "I'm sorry," he says. It's a fact, not a confession, and the lack of substantial regret in his voice makes something in my stomach knot in frustration. "Know it probably doesn't mean much to you yet, but what happened – I know you know. I _am_ sorry. I am."

I'd been considering knocking on Tobin's door but he's not usually awake for another half hour, and if he isn't awake then neither is she, and I don't really want to have to wake them up.

"Oliver?"

I ignore him and go home; _Nancy's Saint Clare_ tucked against my chest. Anxiety churns at my stomach and I can't tell why, exactly, like too many small things have built up around the big things. Like my head is in a glass jar filled with golf balls, then filling the gaps with marbles, then filling the rest of the gaps with sand, filling up all the spaces enough that I can hardly breathe, and from the outside you can't even see the marbles or the golf balls anymore, just a jar of sand, and I'm scared and angry and tense and suffocating.

The last straw is filling the rest of the jar with water, and that happens when I'm about to step up onto the second house's porch, because I hear a quiet, "Hey," from next door and I look up. "You okay, man?" Carl asks me. His gun lays on the table behind him. When I don't answer he's getting up and heading towards me, gesturing down the street and walking with that wide confident gate like his father. "I'm gonna head to the armoury a little later." I look back at his gun again when he gestures over his shoulder. "Last night, Dad said I should pack something more powerful. Now that I'm better at using them... Ambidextrous and all."

My nod must be tense because it makes his smile falter, but he picks it back up.

"I was just sorta... saying goodbye to the old one, guess." Something sad flashes across his expression, and he dips his head a tiny bit. "I... I kinda hate goodbyes."

A whole bunch of crap throttles through my head then. I flit and rake through Carol and her absence and Carl and the last goodbye we exchanged -the _only_ goodbye. We didn't say it aloud but I heard it clear as thunder on that terrible night those two seconds before I watched Ron's bullet slam through his face.

My grip tightens around my book and the corners slowly dig into my sternum so that Carl doesn't notice. Daryl's shirt is too think so it doesn't hurt as much as I want it to. It makes my skin crawl, realising what I'm trying to do, in broad daylight, right in front of someone, but some tiny viscous gremlin inside of my chest is screaming at the top of its lungs in demand for my punishment. **_You deserve it!_** it screeches. **_BURN FOR IT!_**

"So..." Carl looks uncomfortable and awkward, "wanna hang out for a while?"

I swallow then, dipping my head when I feel nauseous.

"We could get some breakfast." He climbs up onto the second step of the porch, one foot on the deck with his lips pursed seriously. "Dad and Judy are home, so, we could hang out somewhere else, for a while." He walks up to me, turning us around so that he is who is closes to the door. He's trying to coax me off of the porch. "If you want to."

A part of me knows that I should stay away from home for a while, find breakfast and hang out with him. A part of me even wants to, because I am desperate to break routine, finally; maybe not do what I know I will do.

But I do it anyway.

"No," I answer, and I step around him and go inside alone. "Later, man."

"Oh—" is all I hear before I shut the door on him. My skin is prickling and my brain is seizing and every part of me is curling in on itself like plastic in flame.

 _I need it to stop.  
 **It never stops.  
** I need it to settle.  
 **Then do something about it.**_

 _"You don't have to, Oliver."_

I shudder, put on music, turn it up and sit on my bedroom floor and hug my knees, still and quiet, with my back pressed to the wall and my toes pushed against the leg of my bed frame. My zebra-striped sock is torn at the toe –makes it poke out– and the frame is cold.

 _"You don't have to do it,"_ Denise tells me again.

"I do."

 _"You don't."_

"I _do._ I really do." My voice cracks, leaving me like a groan, twisting my face up. "I gotta."

 _"Oliver..."_

I breathe deeply and slowly, try try try not to think about anything else other than the in-takes and out-takes off my chest.

 _Inhale.  
Exhale.  
Inhale.  
Exhale._

I even hum.

 _'I was on my way to you and I was worried.  
I was all torn up and nervous 'cause I knew that you'd be gone.  
I knocked and crossed my fingers while I waited,  
and I couldn't hold the teardrops when I walked away alone.'_

I can hear the voice inside my head. **_Come on, man,_** it's whispering, softly and comfortingly and desperately. **_You know you should. You know you deserve it. You know it'll make you feel better. You know it'll make you feel_ something.**

' _It's all over, it's all over, my heart echoed it's all over.  
Every minute that you cry for her is wasted, don't you know?  
It's all over, it's all over, my heart echoed, it's all over,  
stop your cryin', turn around and let her go.'_

"Agh!"

I thought I was being perfectly still. Postponing. But I'm not. My fingers are tightening into my shoulder and I'm squeezing so hard I'm shuddering, and Denise isn't talking to me anymore. The sting and ache radiates across my whole body and makes me grit my teeth and whimper. Until it goes numb. But that _odd_ kind of numb. That familiar kind of numb. That kind of numb that isn't really numb at all. Because the pain is awful. I've come to realise that I have to be feeling more hurt than I can bear in order to be able to hurt myself like this, like it cancels the other hurt out, because the other hurt isn't physical like this hurt is, the other hurt is in my head – it's seeing my parents turn, and sleeping while my brother dies alone in a shower room. It's getting kidnapped, or pinned to a utility room floor and told to take my shirt off. It's watching a girl murder her own sister and play inside her intestines right in front of me. It's finding a friend after almost two years and them dying only a few months later. It's falling for a boy who I gave everything to and who gave everything to me, too, only he forgot, and even though he doesn't remember it, I'm still using him. It's loving a woman like a mother and knowing that her just loving me back makes her hurt worse than she deserves. It's watching people die. It's _making_ people die. It's making people hurt and not hurting myself enough for it all. And so, after a few minutes, I let go and take another part of my skin in my fist, pinch and squeeze and yank there, too, and then another place, and another, and another and another and another...

Bruise.  
Punch.  
Smack.  
Scratch.

 _Bruise.  
Punch.  
Smack.  
Scratch._

 _BRUISE!  
PUNCH!  
SMACK!  
SCRATCH!_

I'd always thought that the kind of people who did this were attention seekers. Or while they did it they'd be hyperventilating, crying their eyes out in the middle of a panic attack, but it isn't true. When I hurt myself – when I feel my blood swell and contuse in the places I squeeze as hard as I can, I'm just calm, because I'm feeling but not feeling, because I am alone and real and here and alive, and the pain and the bruises are my own, personal, solid proof of that.

It sucks.

It just, does...

But it's all I have.

I only stop when I hear banging. It startles me, snaps me out of it.

"Carol!"

It's Tobin.

More banging, downstairs at the door. My head spins and my heart breaks and Bean growls.

"Carol, open up!"

The front door is slammed open. It scares me, badly, and when I hear his heavy footsteps storming up the staircase I grab my gun. Tobin runs past my bedroom into hers, and I'm out of my room, watching him searching around her bedroom. But she isn't in here. When Bean growls at him, Tobin talks him down, but when the man sees me he jumps out of his skin.

"Oliver, _whoa_!" he cries, hands flying above his head. "Don't shoot! It's just me!"

My Glock doesn't falter from between his eyes.

 _'I was broken in a million little pieces,  
when I saw enough to realize, you didn't care for me.'_

When he takes a step forward, I do, too, faster, and then he's falling back on his ass and my Glock is cementers from his forehead. He starts yelling desperately when the back of his head hits the wardrobe, begging me to put down the weapon that is now digging into his cheek.

"Why are you here?" I ask it calmly, emptily, and that small viscous gremlin inside my chest has fallen quiet, watching intently, twiddling its thumbs in anticipation...

 _'It's all over, it's all over, my heart echoed.  
Every minute that you cry for her is wasted, don't you know?'_

There's a note in his hand. He was waving it in my face but now Tobin doesn't move a muscle. **_Do it,_** the goblin growls. And then I'm going to, crouched over him, gun against face, finger kissing the trigger, but I stop because the image of his brains splattered across the room and enjoying it horrifies me. Tobin winces when I pull back, and the goblin sulks away in dissatisfaction.

"What the hell is _wrong_ with you?"

I swallow, shaking my head, gripping too hard on my gun by my side. "I-I don't know."

There is a red circular mark on his cheek. He staggers to his feet, out of breath, overwhelmed. I think he's angry but he's also terrified, and I don't know what I'm feeling because I'm not sure I should be alive. Tobin is the first to pull himself together. "Please - God, where is she? Have you seen her?"

I shake my head, lower my gun, hunching my shoulders.

 _'It's all over, it's all over, so forget her.  
Stop your cryin', turn around and let her go,  
let her go, boy, let her go.'_

He doesn't say it.

He doesn't have to.

...Carol is gone.

I think I already knew, ever since I found her ashtray. I just didn't want to face it. Now though, I have to, because Tobin pushes the note into my palm, and even though I do not read it, I know exactly what I have to do.

"Tobin, go and find Rick."

"What?"

" _Now_."

* * *

 _'I wish it didn't have to end, not this way. It was never my intention to hurt you. But it's how it has to be. We have so much here. People, food, medicine, walls. Everything we need to live. But what we have, other people want, too, and that will never change. If we survive this threat and it's not over, another one will be back to take its place, to take what we have. I love you all here. I do. And I'd have to kill for you. And I can't. I won't. Rick sent me away and I wasn't ever gonna come back, but everything happened and I wound up staying. But I can't anymore. I can't love anyone because I can't kill for anyone. So I'm going like I always should have. Don't come after me, please.'_

I hadn't had time to read it until now.

Funny, hadn't thought I could feel any worse about it all until now.

Before, while Tobin was telling Rick, I'd gone to the next place I could think of: Daryl, and like me, the moment he knew what had happened he'd turned on his heel and ran out of his house. Only, he'd gone to his bike rather than to anybody else. He climbed on the back, crossbow over shoulder, and sped towards the gate. I followed, and got there in time to find Rosita, Abraham, Sasha, Michonne, Maggie and Glenn trying to talk him out of leaving. But the gate was open and then Daryl Dixon was gone. Michonne and Glenn climbed into the eagle truck then, and I followed, only for the door to be shut in my face.

"What are you doing?" I asked breathlessly.

"You aren't coming with us," Michonne frowned.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I argued.

"Oliver, stay here," Glenn barked from the driver's seat. I'd let out a shout in fury, hitting the side of the door. It made Michonne flinch angrily, but I was beside myself...

"GOD _DAMMIT_! LET ME IN!"

I slammed at the door again, trying furiously at the handle but Michonne had locked it from the inside. I tried to reach in, but she held her hand over the handle, and when I tried to yank her off of it Sasha and Glenn both yelled at me.

"Oliver, let go!"

"She's my mom!"

At that, I startled myself, horrified, actually, and when I stepped back I felt the burning sensation tearing right through me. Everybody was staring at me like they weren't sure what just happened, like it didn't make any sense to them, only then it suddenly made sense to all of them more than I understood, because they looked sympathetic and sad for me.

It was enraging.

When Glenn started the engine I wanted to shoot the tires. I was deciding if I could bring myself to when Abraham suddenly planted himself in front of the hood and slammed his hands down on it. "HOLD!"

They did, else he would have broken his legs.

"Make room for my freckled ass!"

"No," Rosita said, marching to the truck. Her hair was sticking out the back of her cap like a make-do hair tie. "Cover my watch. You, stay."

"Hey, we should keep numbers here," Glenn suggested.

"I know where Daryl's _going_ ," she retorted.

"Tracks," I murmured under my breath.

While Rosita got inside the back I stepped towards the truck -to quickly climb in maybe without anybody noticing much, but a pair of Michonne's dark brown eyes pinned me to the wall at my back.

"We'll find her," Rosita told me, and then she shut the doors and they were driving away and Abraham was closing the gate behind them. I was breathing too hard, feeling sick, overheating and sweating badly.

Maggie touched my shoulder.

"Get off me." I jerked away from her, and she tried not to look startled by me as she lowered her empty hand.

"Oliver," Morgan said then, walking over from the solar panels. His southern accent made his voice sound low and gentle and trustworthy. I ignored it. "What did you do with your manners, boy?"

I was about to tell him to put his manners where the sun doesn't shine, but I saw Rick and Tobin marching towards us and they distracted me from it.

"What time did she leave?" Rick ordered. "Know what she took?"

"Some time in the night, I never heard her go," Tobin answered. He was shaking his head and wincing. "But she made a bunch of food, you know? She took a pack, wa–"

"Did she leave on foot?" Rick asked over him, letter in hand.

"I – I don't know," Tobin groaned worriedly. I decided in that moment that I hated him and that this was all his fault and that I should have pulled the trigger on his cranium a long time ago, only then my eyes were watering because I realised I was only thinking that about myself.

"I saw her, I – I think," I told them. "I think she – she must've come back before she left."

"And you didn't _say_ anything?!" Rick growled.

"I..."

"You coulda _stopped_ her!"

"I DIDN'T KNOW SHE WOULD LEAVE ME AGAIN!" My voice cracked and instead of crying I kicked a nearby stone across the street. It clanged against the gate and Sasha flinched furiously. It deflated me. "I was tired. I can't... remember. She was there and then she was gone."

 _"You did it again, dude,"_ Patrick told me. _"Slept right through."_

"I... I'm sorry," I said, feeling lost, horribly. Rick grimaced and nodded at the same time, shrinking in pity. He was about to comfort me but I spoke over him... "She knew what she was doing. She didn't want anybody going after her." I had to force away the catch in my throat like fending off walkers. "If she did I would have already stopped her. I'd be out there _with_ her."

"Rick," Sasha said. "I took over at twelve. I was on 'til six. I never saw anything."

"Road's been quiet since the others left," Abraham adds.

" _What_?" Rick hissed. "Who?"

"Daryl, he went ICMB after the Saviors from yesterday." I hadn't thought to consider that they had anything to do with this. And in truth, I know they don't. Carol wasn't kidnapped neither would she have gone anywhere we would think to find her. If we found any Saviors, unless they'd been unfortunate enough to happen across her, they wouldn't have anything to tell us. "Carol, Glenn, Michonne, Rosita, they all went to shut that shit down."

"No, no," I said, hurting badly enough I had to hold my stomach. "Carol just... she just left. It wasn't about stopping the Saviors."

Before Abraham could ask me what I was talking about Rick's arm came up and he waved it over his head. Like how he pinches his nose sometimes. Only this was a level-up from that. This was for when he is stressed and there is nothing he can do about it.

"Where's the other car?" Tobin asked. He was looking out through the gate.

We all looked.

Like always, out the front of the gate was the long road east that branches out into various other cul-de-sacs nearby, then into towns further on. But in front of us was the burned house to the left; the same one I saw Enid in the window for the first time eight months ago. Then, in the distance, parked in the middle of the road, was a big supply truck, blocking a big part of the road ** _–from any oncoming PATTRICK trucks._** Dotted around the rest of the driveway were four parked cars. Which was odd, because last I checked there were only three.

Tobin turned to us. "We added two more cars yesterday, one of them's missing. The one we put right between those houses."

"Can barely see between the houses from up top," Abraham toyed. "Especially at night." Sasha was nodding.

Morgan asked for the note and I handed it to Rick and he handed it over to Morgan. I didn't know I shake when I'm angry but I do, and I was then. I shake like I do when I'm afraid. But then again, I was afraid. I was terrified. Then I think I cussed because Rick gave me a glare, too, telling me to settle, and when I gritted my teeth he turned to Abraham and Sasha.

"You never saw any head-lights?" he asked them. " _Tail-_ lights? Oliver's right, she's smart enough to cover her tracks."

"She must've left during the shift change," Sasha replied.

Morgan was walking to the car.

"Where you goin'?" Rick called after him.

"I'm gonna go find her," Morgan replied.

" _Wait,_ " Rick told him, and I stepped away but my arm was grabbed. "No, Oliver, you're staying."

"I can help!" I argued, pulling myself out of his grip.

"No," he grabbed me again. "You've done enough today."

I winced. I didn't know what he was talking about exactly; if he meant causing Carol to leave or whether Tobin had told him how I treated him. Either way, the thing I was thinking about more was how hard he was gripping my amputation. When I squirmed, grunting, "Not my amp, man, stop!" he let go of me.

"Oliver, stay."

"But–"

"No buts."

"God _dammit_!" I shouted at him. "God dammit, don't you get it? She's gone because of me!"

"Oliver, this isn't a negotiation—"

I yanked my arm out of his grip and shoved him back so hard he almost staggered. Anger turned my brain to paste, my muscles to stone, my voice to mute. Rick looked guilty and frustrated and tried to reach out to me but I smacked his hand away and pulled Daryl's borrowed button up to sit right on my shoulders again.

"Stay here," Rick said, stern, "we'll find her."

I was so angry I had to force myself not to lash out at him again. Instead, I grimaced at him and said, "What, so you think you're just gonna wonder out there and ask her to come home? You think you can just hand over a few cookie recopies and she'll skip along behind you? She doesn't _want_ to come home - or, no, I don't know for sure if she doesn't. But—"

"Oliver."

" _Rick,_ " I snapped back. "She sees you coming she's gonna run. But if she sees me, she'll..." I trailed, because I had no idea what she would do and this simple fact horrified me. Even so, Rick seemed to consider this, and it gave me enough confidence to keep going. "I can help you find her. I can talk to her. This isn't going to be some quick-fix. She's hurting and she's afraid and she may even be a little crazy, but she trusts me. She can't even help it."

I imagined Rick like a glass of water on the edge of a kitchen counter. _Just one more push. One little poke, and smash..._

"I _know_ her - you know I do."

He gritted his teeth _-nervous tick number one-_ then pinched his nose _-nervous tick number two-_ and finally he threw his hand up _-bonus nervous tick-_ and told me to, "Grab your inhaler and hurry." I already had it in my pocket, so I followed him to the car with a, "Yes, sir," and climbed in the back seat.

"Tell Carl I'll be back soon," Rick told the others. Abraham was opening the gate. Sasha was shaking her head again. "No one else leaves! Everyone stays ready for a fight!" And then me, Rick Grimes and Morgan Jones were leaving Alexandria Safe Zone.

 _' Mercy for the lost  
Vengeance for the plunderers'_

Turning from the image of home, I tapped Morgan's shoulder and asked to read Carol's letter, which brings me to the present; reading it over and over until motion sickness forces me to stop. This car is newer and better cared for than the _Astoundingly Ugly_ car. It drives smoothly and nothing makes weird noises or threatens to fall out of the bottom. Still, I grip my seatbelt and press the button to wind down the window, tipping my head to the side to let the fresh air blow in my face. The air is cold this morning and the weather is turning for Winter; thick fog to make the world look eerie and hidden in greys and weird blues and greens. These parts of Virginia smell of elderberry this time of year. It reminds me of Hershel's tea for the sick last year.

A glance into the wing mirror shows Rick watching me from the passenger seat in front, and it makes me nervous enough that I tilt my head away so he can't see me from both the wing and the rear mirrors. Still, it doesn't deter him.

"Oliver?"

I squint, then relax nonchalantly. "Hmm."

Rick groans when he breathes sometimes. I can't tell if he means to do it but it usually means he's uncomfortable about something.

"What's wrong?" I ask ignorantly.

"You need me to spell it out for you?" he asks me, eyebrows up and being subtle for my sake since Morgan is here. Still, I just shrug. The shrug is stroppy and immature and makes Rick turn around to glare at me the same way he does when Carl gives him that shrug for not washing the dishes, only this is different. This is about killing a man, well, almost, but still, it is unfortunately a subject that Rick has had to address in both of us before.

Even so, I'm not about to play along.

"What?"

"I'm not foolin' around here," he warns me.

I remain quiet, though, this time I have the sense not to shrug again.

"Tobin told me, 'bout earlier."

The shrug happens of its own accord this time so I have to turn it into a shift in my seat. "He broke in. I thought he was going to hurt her," I say, and I ignore the goblin in my chest. **_Liar, liar, liar,_** it chants. "I was protecting us."

Morgan's eyebrows furrow in confusion. He'd probably been assuming that Tobin had caught me self-harming or something involving that subject. But what I just said wouldn't have made sense so I don't blame his confusion, despite the fact that I don't help alleviate it either.

"He said he's worried about you."

 _Of course,_ I think, _Tobin, the friendly giant, actually_ worried _about someone who almost murdered him._

"He broke in," I repeat. "I thought he was going to hurt her."

Rick lets it drop.

"I was protecting us."

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _It's All Over_ by Jonny Cash.

Oliver's got to sort out his morals or I'm gonna punch him.

Confession: Author casually only just realises that he has been spelling "laid" like "led" for the majority of everything he's posted online so far. Also, author is very aware that he has been using the word "oracle" instead of "orifice" even though the two words mean very different things, and that usually instead of orifice meaning eyes, like he thought, people more often use it to describe the anus... The English language Rekt me.

I don't know if anybody has made note of this, but Oliver actually doesn't know the very last thing Lori said to Carl. The _Goodbye, love,_ bit. Carl never told him that part. Carl probably doesn't even remember it anymore, and yes, I know that Oliver dreamed Lori saying it to him once, but shush that was a coincidence — I got too sentimental.

Happy reading.


	25. East, Part 2: The Knife

**DampishPoet** Thanks ^-^

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 **The Sorrowful Deity** Possibly so...

 **The Flash Fanatic** Oliver appreciates it.

 **Person** I've been avoiding answering this since the start, but okay, fine, Oliver is versatile, so he both bottoms and tops. There! Now you know xD

 **SophTheSoap** Gosh! I hope you finally caught some sleep! 1. Thank you. 2. I am not creative enough to make up a good plot on my own. (this is why I am going to fail as an original writing author) 3. Again, agh, thank you 4. Noooo, my friend, there are SO MANY grammar mistakes in this xD 5. AHHHHHH thank you infinitely I hope you have a lovely day/night/life and I hope all your towels smell of roses and that all your socks are warm and soft and that all of your dish-washing en-devours do not splash dirty water back at you or force you to touch soggy old food in the bowl.

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** Thank you and sorry in advance :S

 **TheDarkerSide123**._. *pats shoulder, sends all of the worst typos and the sappiest _there there_ and _attack hug_ gifs... (also thank you for correcting cereal to serial, that was so important)

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

Morgan only had to pull over once to let me yack into a ditch. But I guess that's what I get for re-reading Carol's letter again. Someone must have taken her note from where I left it on my seat because it wasn't there when I got back in, and I didn't ask. Out of sight and mind. Only it is just out of sight. Definitely not out of mind.

Apparently the people you care about are hard to put out of mind even when they are out of sight.

I know this like I know piss is yellow.

Anyway, I try to distract myself, and I do that by looking at Morgan for the most part. I think that Morgan is kind of interesting to look at, really. Not in a weird way or anything like that, but because he looks like he spends a lot of time in his own head. Like me, I guess. Still, Morgan Jones is probably the _last_ person on earth I would say I 'relate' to. He drives with one hand, sure, like me, except he does it by choice so I've already decided that this is just another reason why I should want to ring him out like a wet towel. His free hand, that he so _leisurely_ decides not to use, floats up beside his face, and he rubs his thumb and index finger together gently, thinking the drive away.

 _Stop thinking so much,_ I want to yell at him. _Or at least make sure all the thinking is about us not crashing._

But Morgan can't be thinking about that because his face is hard and pensive and bunched, and as much effort as you have to put into not crashing when you drive I know enough to know that it doesn't take so much concentration that you can't relax your face a bit. No, right now, Morgan's face is a face thinking about things that are not about driving and not crashing. Morgan's face is a face thinking about things that he's got all planned out, and he is just picking his moment to share it with the rest of the world who don't want to hear it, too. But for now he is quiet, which I am okay with. He can just keep on thinking and driving and rubbing his fingers. On one of them has a ring, I see. His wedding ring. He still wears it —just like Rick had his own up until only recently. Now though, he keeps it in a small glass bowl on his dresser with his watch and various other belongings. One time I caught Carl looking at it, but he put the gold down and grabbed Judith's pacifier instead when he noticed me.

"You didn't have to come."

I've been looking at Morgan for so long that actually hearing a sound out of him startles me. Like watching Bean while he's asleep and then - _BAM-_ he's sneezing seven times in a row and I'm having to stagger out of bed to grab back the book I may or may not have just flung across the room on accident. I blink, reminding my heart to stay inside my body— _it's okay, beat-beat, no need for emergency evacuation now_. For a moment I'm not sure who he's talking to —me or Rick or both, so I keep my mouth shut and let Rick do any talking.

"We have to try," he says with his low and rough drawl. "Even if it's a long shot. Even if it's dangerous."

Realising I'm no part of the conversation, I look out the window. It's wound up now because I got too cold.

"Tire tracks pointed east. We go east," Rick says.

"Saviors' compound, that you and the group—" Morgan cuts himself short of _"murdered"_ and instead rephrases to, "that you went to, that was west."

Rick looks at him strangely.

"Seems like she went east," he adds surely.

Frustration stings at my chest for a reason I can't quite explain properly. Frustrating because he acts like he knows her, like he's got this all figured out. Frustrated because he tried to stop her from attempting to protect Alexandria. Frustrated that he tells us not to kill and to cherish life and to spare the lives that have done us wrong, and above all else, frustrated to hell that, despite all this, I can't help feeling like he's on to something.

I cut his nose off and stuff it under the seat to rot but luckily nobody notices except me.

"You don't even know Carol," Rick grumbles, apparently feeling similar to me—bar the imaginary nasal amputation.

"Oh, I got to," Morgan replies.

I frown at him, eying up his ears now, too: _he doesn't need those, surely,_ and Morgan catches my glare in the mirror with a straight and careful expression back at me, like: _stop mentally cutting my things off, boy... it's rude_. I let our eye contact mould together for a second, like wax around a candle, because Morgan is warm like a flame and I am all of a sudden softening and drooping and feeling like I might accidentally cry, so I turn away to glare out the window again.

Astute — _Thanks, Nell. "You're welcome, Ollie."_ — Morgan just says, "A little."

"Why are you doing this?" Rick asks him, and he's looking out of the window, too, now.

"What I believe... I'm not right," Morgan tells us. "There is no right. There's just the wrong that doesn't pull you down."

"It hasn't pulled me down," Rick tells him, and he very carefully doesn't comment on whether or not it has me.

"I think it will," Morgan replies. "'Cause I know you."

Rick groans again — it's odd, despite his discomfort he doesn't disagree with Morgan else he would say so. I think of Rick like Bean and Morgan like Scab; Rick-Bean doesn't like Morgan-Scab-and-all-his _or_ its-frustrating-wiseness sitting right on his nose, but he doesn't really want him _or_ it to go away either... I still don't feel any better about it. The only thing making me feel any type of better is looking out the window, at the pastures and trees and fog and cloud, and if I squint I can feel even better better because the trees start to look like flailing giants with heads too big to move properly. I should put on Pat's spare glasses, but I'm still avoiding that. Plus, the flailing-giant-trees are far too entertaining. Only, the better better doesn't last long, because then, while we're driving up a curved road, Morgan gestures to something ahead.

"There," he says.

"I see it," Rick answers.

Like a fast growing tree, a neglected, black, pick-up truck sprouts from the dusty asphalt into view. Not all that exciting, sure, except for the bodies involved. From what I can tell, one man lies on the hood and the other is stretched out across the road beside it.

I watch quietly while Morgan parks a few yards in front, a few more bodies to be seen further along the road if I stretch my neck to see, and I'm told to stay in the car while they take a look. I don't want to stay in the car, and by Rick's hundred-wrinkled forehead and unfaltering stare back at me as he exits the vehicle, he knows this, but I'm not stupid enough to argue, though, I do manage to wind the window down a crack before Morgan's taken the key out and it auto-locks itself. I watch them draw their weapons; Rick; a pistol, and Morgan; his staff.

They assess the scene.

"That's her car."

My heart stutters when I see it, too. Spikes stuck out of the windows and hood and trunk like porcupine needles, and before I realise it I'm trying the door.

"Child-lock?" I punch it. "The fuck?" _When did that happen?!_ "Dammit, Rick."

"You see her?"

"No."

The man on the floor is not a dead body, I realise, because his chest seizes and Rick grabs him by his collar. I grip the passenger seat to get a better look, but realise I can't hear shit so I shift to the back of the car and stuff my ear out the window again. At least Morgan had the good sense to turn the radar motion detector off, else I'd have set off the car alarm and drawn all bodies –living and dead– here in seconds.

 ** _Oliver De Luca_** ** _  
The Human Walker-Magnet_** _  
(note: giving away hands as peace offerings never works very well, surprise surprise)_

I wonder if this should be my title.

Regardless, I've missed what Rick tries to ask the dying stranger because all I hear is a sharp _shluck!_ as he sticks his knife through his brain. I know I don't need to look, but I do anyway, for a second. Rick crouches by the body and blood pools around his boots — _redredredred_ — but the second is over too quickly and my heart is beating too fast and the goblin in my chest is too hungry. I imagine it trying to eat my heart only it is made of coal so it crumbles between its fangs, like ash.

 ** _Oliver De Luca_** ** _  
The Boy Hiding the Goblin Hiding the Monster  
_** _(note: monsters come in more sizes than dead)_

This one seems more legit.

I look up at the sky again and watch a hawk fly across it, flittering in and out of the fog, and I listen as Rick and Morgan go and take a closer look at her car and the rest of the scene.

"Saviors were getting weapons from the Hilltop's blacksmith. These men were Saviors."

 _Shit._

They do have something to do with this then. Maybe not originally but they do now. And like I'd thought, their encounter with her was an unfortunate one.

I don't hear anything for a few moments, and I'm considering climbing into the front to get out the un-child-locked doors, and then the decision is made for me when I hear a faint gargle and a hard _crack!_ that puts it down and Morgan as he says, "There's blood here. She could've been hit." because then I am already in the front seat, not giving a living-dead damn while I exit the car. However, the living-dead damns come back to me a little right after so I quietly and carefully shut the door behind me as not to get caught, even though I already know I will get caught. But every second counts, especially when it comes to being a nosy bastard.

Morgan is heading back over, and it seems that my stealth is either lacking or he's just very good at spotting hidden things, because we make eye contact. I root to the spot, at first frightened but then sighing in defeat, only, Morgan doesn't blow my cover. He simply rolls his shoulders and meets Rick on the other side of the truck. I grimace.

 _Hating him is really starting to get very complicated._

"I'm proud of her," Rick is telling him, and I've now given myself better cover from him, since, unlike Morgan, he hasn't noticed me crouched behind the pick-up truck yet. I'm knelt between the dead bodies. There are spears in the back of the truck, like Rick said, from Hilltop's _donations_ to the Saviors. The second guy on the hood has already had a bullet through his brain, and I, too, feel a prickle of proudness in Carol's skills here.

"How's that?" Morgan asks.

"She took four of them down," Rick answers. "That woman, she's a force of nature."

"She left because she can't anymore," Morgan tells him. "That's what her letter said."

"She could because she had to. Sometimes you have to."

Rick is heading my way and retrieving guns that the Saviors had left behind, crouching beside the truck parallel to me. Morgan is stood off to the side, looking around, and, most likely, waiting to witness my bust. But I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking about Carol and her letter, and I'm trying to remember more of when she came into my room last night but my mind was too foggy and sad and exhausted after I stayed up too long pacing the house and talking to ghosts and clutching Nonno's carving and thinking about what me and Carl had done before and deciding if I regretted it or not. I did. I _do..._

Shit, Carol. Why did you have to leave me again?

"There's more blood, opposite these men that leads into the field," Morgan tells Rick, who is checking ammo quickly. "It's a trail. Could be Carol's. She could still be alive. She's not here."

"Most of their guns are gone," Rick says.

I'm being perfectly still because it suddenly occurs to me that no matter how I go about this now I'm going to get caught, and as pointless as it is, since I already knew this, it also only just occurs to me how much I don't _want_ to get caught, how, for the first time out here, ever, I've deliberately gone against Rick's orders twice in one day.

"She might've taken them," Rick goes on.

"Those, too."

"Or she could've died here, even if she isn't here."

I stand up, accepting that there are bigger issues here than my pride or reputation, and it takes Rick a second to notice me because when he does he's about to call me over, raising an arm to beckon to the car, but he stops short with the first sound of my name widening his mouth.

He is outraged.

"I _told_ you to—"

"I asked him out," Morgan lies suddenly.

Rick's scold is stifled like a jammed bazooka. He spins, spits out, " _What_?" at him, and very calmly and nonchalantly, Morgan nods to me.

"I asked him outa the car, just a second ago."

I'm squinting, so when Rick looks at me he can't quite tell if I'm confused or freaking out, so he turns back to Morgan.

"I didn't hear you say anything," he challenges.

Morgan almost shrugs...

"I waved."

Rick's teeth grit dangerously, and whether he believes him or he just has decided not to reprimand me, I'm not sure I'll ever know, because then he tucks his extra revolver into the back of his jeans and walks away.

"Trail goes this way," Morgan suggests quietly, and points his staff to the large pasture on his side of the road. It goes east. In the distance is fog and a few houses.

"They were close to Alexandria," Rick says when I join him, continuing on foot. "There's even more of them. "

They know more about us than we know about them. Because of this, anxiety pulls at my stomach so I concentrate on making sure I don't stumble in the long grass, keeping my head down but my eyes around us, ears open, holster pin unclipped on my left thigh so I can draw my Glock if I need to.

"We didn't end it," Rick admits heavily.

"No," Morgan replies. "You started somethin'."

He and Rick look at each other, and again, Rick doesn't disagree. He looks up to the sky. I wonder if he's making a small prayer or something, if he still believes it, too, or if I even do, because right now I'm not so keen to raise my eyes at the cloud and ask: _Please let everything be okay..._

Though, I guess I just did.

* * *

We walk a few miles across country. If this is Carol we are following, she isn't in good shape. The blood trails are pretty sporadic, hardly any for long periods of time and then sudden smears in odd places, and she isn't climbing any fences or opening any gates but rather finding her way around them, though, most fences are broken at some point or another from passing herds before us, so she's been able to simply step through. Even so, it's easy not to lose trail for how much track she leaves behind; her footsteps staggered and rough and heavy. I'm not doing very well in not thinking about why this could be, because I'm picturing her body; broken and bruised, and her eyes; rusted so completely they're rotting, and her mouth; curled into a growl and biting.

It makes me shiver.

It's still cold.

Daryl's sleeves are long, so I ask Rick to tie a knot at the end of the right sleeve for me for warmth, and for my hand, I grip the end of the sleeve so that it hugs my fist and fingers and protects it from the cold, too.

An open field over, we come to a stop when a large part of grass has been flattened down by something that isn't there anymore, but it left a stain of blood across the blades and seedlings.

I shiver again.

But this time not from the cold.

"It's not much," Morgan says. "But if it's Carol's, then she's been bleeding for a while."

We keep walking, climbing through a broken fence with a damp bloody handprint on it. We follow the trail down a grass slope and past an old rusty sheep trailer.

"So, you out here because Carol is your friend?" Morgan asks. Sometimes when Morgan asks questions I'm never quite sure if he's asking me or Rick. He doesn't look at either of us, but rather just tilts his head towards the both of us on his right side. Still, I let Rick do the talking.

"We're out here 'cause she's family," Rick answers.

"I've talked to people back there," Morgan tells him — _him-Rick,_ because I'm sort of not so subtly refusing to contribute to their conversation completely. "I found out about what happened at the prison. How you sent her away. She killed two of your people, right? Burned their bodies. What if that had happened today? Would you kill her?"

"If it happened today, I'd thank her," Rick answers. "Or I would've killed them myself. She was right to do it. They were sick, spreading a disease." _The same disease that killed my brother,_ I think, and then suddenly Rick seems to go soft, recalling this detail, too, because he glances at me with sad blue eyes, and says, "Sorry, son."

Without looking at them, I shake my head and shrug...

"Whatever," I deadpan. "None of them would have made it anyway."

Rick is watching me, but he doesn't disagree because I am right.

"Yeah, but this was back then," Morgan tells us. "And you didn't kill her. You sent her away, Rick, and she came back. And she came back and she saved all y'all. People can come back, Rick."

* * *

We've followed the tracks through a small grove of trees and out into a large farmland; grass so tall and pale it looks more like hay. Some of it even _is_ hay; small rotting plies of the stuff dotted around the place. The fog on the ground has cleared some, and the cloud in the sky is making its slow exit east for what looks like a good sunrise. Though I'm hardly thinking about pretty views. I spend my time thinking about actions and consequences and whether we should make decisions for ourselves or for other people and how all of that depends on the action or the consequence or the people involved and what kind of person you are, and how that is just how painfully blunt and complicated life is now, and how, in a way, it's kind of always been like that, only before it was deciding if you were going to skip school or study for that paper, eat your broccoli or give it to the cat, date that girl or kiss that boy...rather than deciding if you'll murder a child and rob from the dead.

A small shape brings my eyes to one specific part of the pasture we've come to.

The shape is clumsy

and pale

and has

short

grey

hair.

"No."

I run for her.

It's only when I'm closer and she turns to me that I realise Rick and Morgan had ran, too. I look at her face and the gaping slice across her throat and relief hits me in the face like a train, sweeping through me so brilliantly I remember to breathe again.

"It's not her," Rick says.

 _It's not her._

 _it's  
not  
her_

I look at the clouds, clapping my hands together frantically, "Thank you. God, thank you," I say, only it sounds more like, "Fuck. Holy fucking shit. Fuuucking holy _shit_!"

They are both far too relieved to reprimand me, and before I give them chance I am marching forward and unsheathing Lizzie's knife. I grab the walker's shoulders and hold it steady and before its arms even come up I have driven it to the floor with a foot through its kneecap. I would finish it, but Morgan does it before me with a hard _crack!_ and growl as wood shatters bone. When it crashes to the ground, I turn to Morgan and almost yell, "I had it!" but I hold my tongue and drop my eyes with a sharp death-glare at his stomach, and instead we all take a closer look at the corpse. Rick crouches by her side. Tracks of blood stain down her front and the gash through her jugular is wet and red.

"She couldn't have been dead more than a day," Morgan says.

I'm not looking at the walker anymore. I'm looking at the farm yard up ahead and aiming my Glock at the place I saw something move. _Swear it._ A gate is closing and a shadow is falling, and when I brush the faux collar of Rick's jacket with my arm to get his attention he looks up to me and immediately draws his weapon, too. A rustle. They both hear it. So, without a word, we creep through the gate and into the yard.

A dead walker is laying by the gate opposite this one and several others are strewn about inside the yard also. The dirt-ground is scuffed. There was a struggle here, recently.

A snarl.

One tall walker shambles ahead, though it's not coming for us, and when a man rushes around the hay barn he drives his spear through its face with a grunt. I aim at him.

 _Is he... wearing armour?_

"HEY!" Rick barks.

The stranger jumps three feet in the air.

"Whoa, _whoa_!" He's gone, scurrying back behind the large rickety barn wall. He'd left his spear but that most likely means he has more weapons on him. "It's okay! I'm not trouble. I don't want any trouble!"

"Come out, drop your weapons," Rick orders.

"I can't do that."

 _Well then you're going to die, asshole._

We're edging closer.

"The wasted are too close," I think he says, but I'm not sure because the word _wasted_ sticks in my head for too long. "I'm just looking for my _horse._ Have you seen him?"

"No," Morgan answers. "We're looking for our friend. Have you seen her?"

No answer.

"Have you seen her!?" Rick bellows.

"They're coming! Just go! Just go!"

The herd he is talking about is small, but still dangerous. They crowd where his voice is coming from and he has to run, stumbling desperately out into the field. He's fast, and lining up a shot is hard with so many dead-heads in the way. Fuck, he's fast.

"Stop!" Rick roars, and in the same moment five very different things happen. The first is Rick had fired his gun. And the second, he had missed, because third, Morgan had shoved him off aim. And the fourth thing was that I had been stood directly next to Rick and at his shove I had been jolted, too, sent staggering to my knees with ringing ears. Though, the fifth thing. _That_ is by far the worst of all...

The herd.

They come for us.

Seven in total, I think.

Morgan takes out the first, sticking his staff through her eyeball. Rick ends the second, grabbing a shoulder and slashing across its temple. Once I shove one that had grabbed me on the floor, I stand up and Morgan and I take it out; knocking its legs out from under it with one smooth swing of Morgan's staff before I drive Lizzie's knife through its forehead. Four left. We take out one each, though Morgan struggles with the very last. It sneaks up on him and grabs his shoulders, but a moment before any teeth get involved Rick drives his blade through its temple.

With a grunt, Morgan grounds himself, looking so wound up I wonder if he might spin off into the sun like Taz in those old Loony Tunes cartoons, but he remains in one place —not flinging off tornado-style across Virginia— and the three of us catch our breath for a second. Rick and Morgan, however, glare angrily at one another. When Rick marches towards the barn, Morgan calls out to him.

"Rick! We didn't know who he was!"

Ignoring him, Rick examines the spear. Blood drips down the handle.

"Yeah, it's one of the Hilltop's," Rick says. "Like the one on the road. Maybe he's one of them. Maybe he's looking for Carol, too."

"Maybe the man is just looking for a _horse_ ," Morgan argues. "Maybe he is from Hilltop. Maybe he's from somewhere else."

"I don't take chances... anymore."

Morgan walks east, where the stranger left, and then he turns to face us, his back to the sunrise with pink and orange swirls pooling out around his silhouette like a painting. He looks me in the eye for a few seconds, and then he blinks slowly and looks at Rick...

"Those people, the Wolves after they attacked, I found one of them," he confesses. "He had attacked me on the road before, when I was trying to find you. And I stopped him. But I let him live. And then he was there in Alexandria after the attack, hiding in one of the brownstones so I stopped him again. I knocked him out and I could have _killed_ him... But all life is precious."

 _Blah blah blah blah..._

Rick, too, looks disappointed, groaning his sigh with a hand on my shoulder, maybe to quickly and silently make sure I'm okay, or just as something to hold on to for a moment, or maybe even something else. Either way, he doesn't look remotely impressed. Sweat makes letters with his curly hair against his forehead, and his eyes are squinting and tired and blue, and the scar across his nose that he'd gotten in his fight with Pete all that time ago shows pale and damp.

"Put him in the cell of the brownstone basement," Morgan says, taking me off guard because, for one, erm… excuse me, what fucking _cell_ in what fucking _basement_?! And two, I didn't think he would ever tell Rick about keeping the Wolf. This is Morgan and Carol's secret... well, and Rosita's, and Noah's, and Eugene's, and Tara's, and Denise's, and mine... whatever, it's still meant to be a secret. Morgan hasn't stopped talking— "'Cause I knew he could change. We _all_ can change." —and Rick has already let go of my shoulder before he's even finished, almost interrupts him, growling so harshly I feel the vibration in my chest...

"You had one of them alive _in the community_?!"

"Oh yeah," Morgan answers. "And when the walls came down and the walkers broke in, Carol found out. We fought and that man escaped, and Denise. She had come to the cell to try and help him and he... took her hostage. And then she and that Wolf, they got _swarmed,_ and that man, that _killer,_ he _saved_ her _life_. And then Denise was there to save Carl. It—" Morgan grimaces so tightly he has to start that bit over. "—It's all a circle. Everything gets a return."

Rick and I remain silent. I think about my own return, two years of it, how I wandered across seven states, lost my family, found another, all to come right back again. Sometimes it makes me feel like a dog chasing its tail— ** _someone should put you down._** Rick's eyes train beyond Morgan, and mine flit to the ground, rubbing my neck, and Morgan keeps talking, gently and surely and carefully.

"But the fact is the fact. I did what I did. I let him live."

He steps forward, squaring up between us.

"You go home. Take the car. You're needed back there." His eyes shift to me and he dips his head to get me to look at him, eyebrows up inside his forehead as he tells me, " _Both_ of you. You shouldn't be out here taking any more chances."

"I'm not going without her," is my retort, but I realise my mistake too late. Rick was going to say it. But he stops and looks at me, startled, realising that in all of Morgan's strange and gentle and frustrating ways, he is right. If the roles were switched, me as Rick and him as Morgan, he would eat walker guts before he'd let me go. _This_ is why I don't talk a whole lot; so I don't butt in and ruin things. If I had just kept my mouth shut Rick wouldn't have thought twice about us going after her. But I am still just the boy without a hand. The boy who is foolish and stupid and makes dumb decisions based on impulse. The boy who doesn't realise who he is to people.

Rick's teeth are gritted, but still, I don't give up my fight.

"Rick," I say, almost whisper it. "She's still out here. We can't just—"

"I will find your mom, Oliver," Morgan tells me, completely serious. "I will."

I glare at him, only I'm not glaring at anybody and my neck is nodding now because I _believe_ him. Morgan nods, too, his eyes closing for a second to take in the weight of the promise I've just allowed him to make. And he feels it. I see that. He feels it heavy like a sack of cement on his shoulders. Because _that_ is what Carol is to me. A sack of cement on shoulders too weak to carry it. But Morgan braces himself, steady under the colossal weight, ready to carry it home.

Another small prayer is taken up through the clouds:

 _Let them find home,  
amen._

"You both go," Morgan tells us.

Rick almost shakes his head, but keeps his eyes on the floor while Morgan turns towards the rising sun, away from us.

"You're coming back," the man beside me eventually says, proposing his own promise.

"Yeah," Morgan answers. "But if I don't, don't come lookin'."

 _He's really doing this,_ I think, taking a deep breath. _He's really going to find her._

"Take it," Rick suggests, presenting a handgun.

"No, I—"

Rick twists it around, holding it up.

"Take it."

Morgan steps over and accepts it, looking at it like it's something he knows very well but doesn't want anything to do with anymore, looking at it the way I walk on train tracks, or the same way I change Judith's diapers.

"Morgan?" Rick asks before he goes. "Michonne did steal that protein bar."

I watch the close-mouthed grin spread across Morgan's face, and he looks up and says, "Oh, _I_ know," and turns and walks away. Rick turns, too, walking, only he stops by the exit gate when he realises I haven't followed him.

"Oliver."

"Just a sec," I say, and when he cocks an eyebrow in warning I add, "It's okay, swear. Just a second." With a nod, I'm allowed to jog back for Morgan, calling out to him when I'm close enough not to attract anything unwanted. "Hey. Hey."

"What are you doin'?"

"Just..." Out of breath. Need inhaler. _Oh geeze._ "Just, wanted to ask... how come you covered for me, back before?"

Morgan's head dips and he smiles this little bit, pursing his lips at odd moments while he replies...

"You remind me of my boy."

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah," he says, and smiles in that sad way she smiles sometimes. It's this smile, I realise, that you will only ever see on a person who has lost a child. _"Children aren't meant to die before their parents,"_ Carol told me once. _"We're not built for that kind of loss. It's something that destroys you."_ Morgan —the parent whose child died before him, the father not built for that kind of loss... _destroyed?—_ says, "he was a trouble-maker, too."

I nod very seriously, mustering my next words...

"Thank you, Morgan."

He just nods, so I wave once and start back towards Rick, but again, I stop for a second, turning back to him.

"Uh, sir? Erm, Carol's not my mom, not... Not really."

"She is," is what Morgan says, and I watch him, frowning, and then just squinting and waving and a little bit taken aback in a way that I appreciate more than it probably looks on my face.

 ** _Oliver De Luca_** ** _  
The Unyielding Serial-Frowner.  
_** _(note: oops)_

"See you later."

"Oh yeah," he assures me. "Stay out o' trouble, boy."

"Yessir."

Rick greets me with a contemplative nod, and with one squeeze on my shoulder, we are making our way back west. We're almost to our destination what feels and looks like around an hour or so later, by the sun; but I can't be sure because I'd left Lizzie's watch inside my bedside table, which is now where I keep my deer carving and Pat's glasses and Mom and Dad's rings, too. Mika's tattered and mended bracelet will always stay on my wrist though, even if one day there's only a single red thread left of her.

"Hey." Rick brushes my elbow to coax my attention back from my wrist. I put it down, because I'd been rubbing the bracelet against my nose. "Look," he says, pointing to where the cars are beyond this last field. "Right where we left it."

I smile; a few fields back I had accidentally wondered aloud what we would do if it wasn't. Rick told me they would be there, and he was right.

"Can I drive?" I ask.

Rick smirks. I think that watching Rick Grimes smirk is like watching a bolt of lightning. He shakes his head.

"Oh, come on, why not?"

"I will be an _old man_ by the time I let you drive me anywhere."

"I have before."

"Remember how that turned out?"

My sigh is long and slow.

"It wasn't me who drove into a walker," I mumble under my breath.

"Hmm," Rick concurs. I feel the corner of my mouth twitch up and I have to dip my head to hide it.

"So, is that a deal then?"

"Is what a deal?"

"I get to drive you around when you're an old man."

He laughs this time, and I hear a whole rumble of thunder, feel it right under my boot souls.

"Sure, Oliver. Deal."

* * *

The drive home is quiet and anxious and hopeful, and when we arrive at Alexandria, Rick stops the car just inside the gate and Abraham shuts the outer bar-fence closed behind us. When we clime out Rick and I greet him seriously, and Abraham frowns through his lit cigar and pats my shoulder approvingly, giving me a broken back that I appreciate all the same. He calls me a, " _Damned_ good kid," which doesn't make much sense to me because surely if you're damned then you can't be at all good, but Abraham is Abraham, who says things like _'ugging bumplings'_ and _'mother dick'_ and _'a camel ate the keys'—_ though I think he meant that literally. Either way, I try not to spend a whole lot of time thinking about it.

"Morgan's still out there looking," Rick tells him. "Is Michonne here?"

"She's still out there, too."

I look up, startled— _shit. It's been hours._ By the look on Rick's face, he's thinking something similar, and for the first time in a long time I watch a stampede of dread escape out of his eyes all at once. He sees me staring and quickly does his best to reign it in.

They look out over the fence, and I don't have any particular place to go right now because I know that the only place I want to go is the place I'm only going to do something I'm not supposed to do, so I go and sit on the car trunk with my legs crossed and my hands in my lap and try to think of old movies I liked as a kid, like Spirited Away and The Lion King and Star Wars and The Goonies.

Quietly, I hum a song from Mary Poppins and it makes me feel better.

Rick and Abraham are still looking out through the fence together. Rick is pinching his nose again, and wiping his eyes, maybe. Abraham is who starts conversation...

"You afraid to go back to it? Let somebody close?"

"Yeah," Rick answers, only it had taken him a few seconds to admit it. "Yeah…"

"Mm," Abraham concurs. "Me, too."

My head tips back to the clouds and my eyes close, and I absolutely do not think about last night and how I _'let somebody close'_ and how much I know I shouldn't have. I don't think about how, at first, I didn't want to take off my T-shirt because I didn't want to let Carl see my bruises and my amputation, and how I only did because he took off his bandage and let me see the place his eye used to be, fully, for the first time since I watched it get blown away, and I don't think about how much that meant to us, or how long I let my mouth be so taken up by his kissed that I began to _breathe_ with them, or the stifled murmurs of his own breath while he lost himself inside of me... _because he did get lost and I did, too, we made it to Neverland and went further further further than its star, through galaxies and nebulas and red giants and supernovas, sucked in through worm holes, but it was that strange kind of lost, that kind of lost that makes you feel like you're being found_...but I don't think about that; I push my hand through my collar and scratch four lines up my shoulder-blade so I don't forget it.

Over by the gate, Abraham says, "But now I think I'm that much more ready to tear the world a brand-new asshole... Any second now."

"Yeah," Rick agrees, and he's almost laughing. I, on the other hand, don't do anything for a second, even when Abraham turns to look at me with a cocked ginger eyebrow, deliberately taking the opportunity to soak up the uncomfortable blush on my expression while I try not to look directly at him. I don't know if he's _trying_ to turn my cheeks into tomatoes, but he sure as hell isn't trying to _avoid_ it! Even so, I am a teenage boy with a mind secretly dirtier than a field of pigs, so before I can help it I am smirking and holding back the swell of laughter in my stomach and instead I letting it out with a shake of my head and a pair of rolling eyes at the asphalt.

With a puff of smoke saturating through his goatee, Abraham nods in satisfaction at me before turning back to scowl happily at the road...

" _Any_ second."

* * *

Pat's glasses were in my drawer, where I'd left them, and I do my best not to think about the fact that they aren't mine while I wear them around the second house for a few minutes. Only it's hard not to think about something when it so drastically changes how you see the world. I'm not sure what I feel more out of sorrow and awe when I look into Bean's eye and see that the blue pool in it turns out to be an entire galaxy. I look at the crisp clearness of text on page, the very details in the paper itself, every fibre; flattened and compressed. I look at my fingertips, the tiny particles of dirt and gravel and walker blood in every ridge and loop and pore. Even the trees outside, through the window while I wash my — _gross—_ hands, I look at the branches splintering through the morning sky and cloud with their spindly long fingers, their reddening leaves, every one of them, like weird jewels, or veins, as focused and as sharp as Lizzie's knife. Even the rust on the walls in the distance is beautiful, and the ivy and weeds growing up the side of Daryl's house.

 ** _Oliver De Luca  
_** ** _The Boy Borrowing His Brother's Eyes  
_** _(note: thanks, Pat)_

I spend a while staring at more inanimate objects around the house, comparing them between spectacles and none:

Clear.  
 _Blurry.  
_ Clear.  
 _Blurry._

 ** _Go figure, asshole._**

I let the glasses sit on my nose, sighing tiredly.

Upstairs, I've got one of Aiden's old RunMixes on. He made a whole album named _'THE END IS NIGH'_ and it's pretty much just a bunch of different songs from all genres and ages about the apocalypse. The one that comes on now is the last on the CD, it's super old with a slow start and lyrics like:

 _'Why does the sun go on shining?  
Why does the sea rush to shore?  
Don't they know it's the end of the world?  
'Cause you don't love me anymore.'_

Still, it's not enough to keep the noise in my head at bay for very long.

 ** _Look at you. Sat here on the couch with your dog, listening to music, while she's out there in danger and alone, probably dead._**

"Stop," I complain.

 _"You can't though, can you?"_

It's Ron.

 _"You can't stop,"_ he tells me. " _Just like Carol... You don't let go of anything."_

"What, like your mom?" I retort, and I regret it immediately, and then, in my silence, the whole world echoes around my head like everything is very far away from me all of a sudden...

 _'Don't they know it's the end of the world?  
It ended when I lost your love.'_

...and then Ron slaps me. Only it was me. I do it again, too, right across my face, and again, and again, but a knock at the door startles me. I'm gasping and clutching my face and doubled over against the coffee table crying my eyes out.

When another round of knocking sounds, I consider rushing upstairs and acting like I'm not home, but I know that for one, the door is unlocked, and two, if I move from behind the couch, whoever is at the door will be able to see me through the windows, and three —the deal breaker— they can hear the music, so I get up.

"It's just me," Carl says, already entering and dodging Bean when he jumps up for Judith. He pets his neck to settle him. "Down-Bean."

"Emi-Bean!"

"Oliver? You home? Hey."

"Molimer!"

I'm turned away from them and stood a little out of their view in the archway into the living room.

"I heard what happened," Carl says, walking past me with a glance that I turn away from. "Dad just told me."

Inside the living room, Carl sets Judith on the floor. I haven't invited him inside, so I stand here, uncomfortable and tense and wanting to tell him to leave, and I'm fidgeting because he isn't taking any notice, but in the end I go to the front door and shut it when I realise I don't have the energy to protest. Judith curls up with Bean on the rug. I'm rubbing my eyes under Patrick's glasses so I don't notice that Carl has turned and stepped in front of me until it's too late. He's looking at the glasses, and then he isn't.

"What – what happened to your face?"

My hand comes up to my left cheek; where he'd pointed. It stings and the skin is warm and sensitive. He looks me up and down then, making one small step closer that I edge away from in half a step, and I can see him putting two and two together in a way that makes me feel weak and transparent and like I don't want to be here anymore.

"Hey." Carl suddenly sounds breathless, dipping his head to get me to look at him. I don't. "Hey, you doin' okay?"

My smile shudders, but I nod anyway.

Carl swallows anxiously.

"D'you wanna talk about it?"

My mouth opens, but the noise that comes out of me cracks.

"Well, do, uh..." Carl fumbles. "Do you just want a hug?"

I don't say anything. I just sort of stare at my feet and try not to make any noises and do a bad job of it because I'm groaning and my hands are pulling on the hair at the back of my head.

"Big or small?" he's asking, and he's stepping forward. "You decide. 'Cause, I'm good either way."

I'm shaking my head, trying to ask him to leave, but the words, "Big, if that's okay," leave me before I tell them to and then his arms are squeezed around my middle and mine are wrapped around his shoulders. My breath hitches past his neck, and then into it—into that small place of space between my arm and his collar where its warm and smooth and oozes colour if you hold on for long enough— because I bury my nose there, breathing through the fabric of his washed out old flannel shirt. My senses fill with him. The whole room fills with him. The whole world of sea and sand and sky and flowers fill with him; his voice and his thoughts and his smell and his skin; all clean and neat but rough and used in that _Carl Grimes way_ like his soul has been lived in all day, today and every day in and before his existence.

Sempiternal.

I know I should stop, but when I open my eyes I look at the detail of him and can't help myself. I can see every thread of his shirt collar like I don't ever remember seeing in them before. I look at each strand of dark brown hair hung and bunched against his shoulders and my fingers, and the little pale cilia hairs on his ears and neck and jaw—longer and darker there though. The detail overwhelms me, like what it must feel like to go minnow fishing and to end up catching a whole trout —no, a whole _whale_.

My eyes shut...

"She left me."

...But I don't cry.

Anything but cry.

Mutter inaudibly, sure...

"Carl, she's gone."

He tightens his grip.

"I know."

"You don't. You don't know. She's done it before." I try to stop but the words keep coming, tumbling out of me one after the other. "She can't kill for the people she loves and it's my fault because she's killed for me more than anybody. I can't do it anymore. I don't want to. The people who love me get hurt. I hurt myself to stop it but it doesn't help you still get hurt you still leave me you still get shot you still die."

Carl is stuttering. I don't think he heard me. I'm not saying words properly. They feel like cement; heavy and sticky and clumpy and useless until it's left alone to harden up.

"I'm sorry," I tell him, and this time my voice suddenly comes out low and clear and toneless. I pull away, composing myself and shaking my head. "You were right, that day you got shot." I shake my head when my chest stings, pushing it down. "I know you don't remember it, but you were right when you said it doesn't help, saying goodbye. That it doesn't change anything. That it always hurts. And it does. So I'm not going to do it anymore."

"I remember," Carl tells me, or rather _throws_ it at me. His hand is up on his own shoulder, pulling against himself like a heavy bag strap, as if he's holding onto the stress so it doesn't carry him away. "We were in a bathroom, right before everything happened, I think."

I'm nodding, frowning.

"I told you that I lied to you," he goes on, "about saying goodbye. That—that it was me who couldn't take another one. Not you." His eye snaps between both of mine fast enough I can't believe I can't hear his whole body rattling. "And it was true," he goes on quickly. "I – I know it. I've known it for a while?" The way he says it sounds like he's asking, swallowing, and his brow is arched high in the middle, paying a lot of attention to every word he says. "Sometimes – sometimes I look at you and I'm crying. It took me a while to realise that it's because I missed you. And, I do. Sometimes, a lot."

All of a sudden, it feels like he is talking to me. _He,_ as in, _Carl Grimes._ Carl Grimes before he got his eye shot out. Carl Grimes when he knew me. Really _really_ knew me. Of course, it's been him all along, I know that. But it's never felt this real. I've never had so much proof, not like this. I've dreamed of this. _Yearned_ for it. Even come to peace with the idea of it never happening, after long enough. But now, hearing him so clearly, it's overwhelming. So overwhelming that it hurts badly. Because he _is_ right here, with one eye and a reconstructed memory, and the worst part of it all is that I have got _all of him_ to lose again...

My eyes shut and I shake my head.

"Ca—"

"Oliver," he cuts me off, taking my jaw in both hands and holding on when I try to shake him off, "you were the _hardest_ goodbye. You were. But I'm not going anywhere."

"It's not that simple."

"It can be."

"It can't!"

I shove him but he pulls me back to him.

"I _can't_!"

"No," he answers. "You just _won't_!"

And then we are fighting. Our arms and hands tangle and yank into shirt shoulders and collars, and our feet dig into the floor. He's close enough our noses are almost touching and the scowls on our faces are venomous. Then, all of a sudden, and with a hard and violent shake from me that would have sent him reeling if I had only let go of his collar, we are both very, very quiet and still for a moment. His hand touches my cheek slowly and gently, like he's afraid of me. Thing is, he should be. Because I am _so_ angry. So angry that if I were to hit someone I would kill them.

I'm scared I will.

I  
am  
scared  
I  
will

"You just won't," Carl says again, breathless, and then the only noise left in the whole universe is the music still playing from upstairs; to him... but to me?

 ** _There is this boy,_** the voice in my head is telling me...

 ** _He is not brave enough, not strong enough, not good enough,  
...to be loved by anyone._**

 ** _This boy is you, Oliver._**

 ** _You are lost, and you will always lose everything._**

"Then what do I do?" I ask desperately.

But of course, the two answers I hear are very, very different...

Answer one:  
 ** _You take it all away yourself._**

Answer two:  
"You kiss me."

Carl's words are the last I hear but they are not the words I listen to, because when he takes my hand and steps into me, I turn my head, and his lips land on my cheek. My glasses tip up against his nose, and he is so soft and gentle, and the small hitch in his breath turns me numb. His hands are falling, slipping away from my chin and fingertips, and by the time he's stepped back the anguish in my expression has faded to blankness.

The music upstairs is almost over.

 _'Why does my heart go on beating?  
Why do these eyes of mine cry?  
Don't they know it's the end of the world?  
It ended when you said goodbye.'_

"Oliver?" passes his breath. He's lost all of his oozing colour, all his lived-in-soul-sempiternal-whale-not-minnow-ness. Now he is all pale and colourless, except the one part in his face that is staring right at me.

"I gotta go do chores," I answer him, staring right back. His eye is open and big and blue, and he looks _so_ unhappy. "You can grab a comic and hang here if you want."

His blue doesn't look away.

I clear my throat and look away for him.

"Hey," I say. "We're good, aren't we?"

"Good?" He can barely say the word.

"Yeah, good. You and me, you know?" I ask, but I have to elaborate when his eyes are watering. My eyebrow comes up and I smile in — _agonising—_ jest. "Now. _Not._ Anymore?" I know what I'm doing and I know that I'm hurting him but I know I'm hurting him less now than I will in the future. "Right, man?"

 _'Don't they know it's the end of the world?  
It ended when you said goodbye.'_

"Not..." he murmurs quietly, a second of chorus passing before he's shaking his head and nodding at the same time.

"That's good," I reply, even though that wasn't an agreement. "Uh. Bye, man."

 ** _Oliver De Luca  
_** ** _The Knife  
_** _(note: aim for the heart and do not apologise)_

Carl's eyebrows arch, and the first tears streak down his cheeks all at once before he has a chance to wipe them all away, and he doesn't say anything —he can't— but he definitely tries to, so I turn and leave the house before he can.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _End of the Wold_ by Skeeter Davis.

I've been reading a lot of I'll Give You the Sun – by Jandy Nelson, and Bite – by K.S. Merbeth (SHE ANSWERED MY ASK ON TUMBLR ohboydieme).

Happy reading.


	26. East, Part 3: The Guinea Pig

**The Darker Side** omfg morbid! Jesus shit. *throws roses and puppies at you* better?

 **RHatch89** They did do it! I'm trying my best to get them back together but there's so many complications! xD i'm tryiiing xD

 **The Sorrowful Deity** xD fucking wow

 **Spockspock** eep, thank you!

 **DampishPoet** I CAN'T I'M A WRITER IT'S MY HOBBY TO TORTURE

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** You have a beautiful heart.

 **JRH18** OMG HELLO! Thank you and I hope you are, too.

* * *

 **~Third Person/Past Tense~**

* * *

Oliver was sitting on the gazebo roof, watching the late morning cloud roll across Virginia. It took a while to get up here—he almost couldn't, but he managed and now had a hand full of splinters and sores that agitated the cut across his palm.

Really though, Oliver didn't care about the pain.

He was looking at the road outside Alexandria. From up here, he had a clear view. He tried to imagine Carol leaving. He imagined her alone.

 ** _Why aren't you going after her?  
_** _I already did._  
 ** _This is on you. You know that?  
_** _I know... I know._  
 ** _You're a waste of space. You're a waste of effort. You can't even leave because you'll get them killed looking for you, too.  
_** _They aren't dead!_  
 ** _Yeah, well... you should be._**

He shuddered. He couldn't live with this, the voice in his head, the goblin in his chest, the ghosts. He couldn't keep ignoring it and hope it would all go away. The voice in his head was nice to him, once. But now it made him do things and think things that hurt him, and sometimes others. He wanted it to stop— _to really stop_.

 ** _It's time to go, soon._** ** _  
_** ** _Plan B._**

The handle of his Glock was smooth and cold against his thumb.

 ** _It's quiet now. You're on your own. It'd be easy. It wouldn't even hurt._**

Oliver un-holstered his—

"Oliver?"

He startled and turned around, the noise in his skull sulking away. Maggie pushed a shrub aside and stood before the gazebo.

"Hey," she said. "Was just looking for Enid. Got this off the line, Glenn must've thought it was his." She handed up Oliver's red hoodie.

"Glenn? Err... did he say anything, about me?"

"No," Maggie said. "Why?"

"Nothing." Oliver pulled on the hoodie and buried his amp into the warm front pocket. "Thanks for this." Maggie had sewn the tear with some green thread.

"So, you seen Enid around?"

Oliver shook his head.

"Hey... everything okay?"

"Yeah. Fine."

She took a seat under him on the gazebo bench. Bean was there, panting. Maggie sighed. "What's going on, Oliver?" she asked him. "Talk to me. You can."

Oliver inhaled. He had to old his breath for a second.

"I... I think I'm getting bad again," he said. Maggie took a moment to say anything, except that moment ran out and Scott called out from the street—he'd recovered from his gunshot wound months ago. Denise did such a good job that he no longer even limped.

"You want these bins on the east wall or the south?" he asked Maggie.

"That one to the south, thanks, and—"

"I know, boss. Hide some around. Got it."

Maggie smiled. "Thank you."

As Scott left, Oliver asked, "Want help?"

"Actually, Oliver," Maggie said, not noticing Oliver wince—Scott did though. "I'd like you to stay with me for a while. I need your help with something."

"Yeah," Scott frowned, "I got this."

"Thanks," she told him, "oh, if you see Enid, tell her I'm looking for her."

"Yes, ma'am."

When he was gone, Maggie stood up and left the gazebo.

"You coming?"

"Yeah," Oliver said—he owed her enough. "Yeah, I am."

* * *

Inside Maggie's kitchen, Oliver was asked a lot of questions about how he took care of his hair. Oliver couldn't offer much help since he didn't really look after it—"If it's out of my eyes, I don't care." He was going to ask why she wanted to know, but she asked him how the morning went, so Oliver told her they'd found Carol's car, all the Saviors she'd killed, and how Morgan went on without them.

Maggie made coffee.

Oliver was squinting at the jar sitting open on the counter in front of him.

"Err... pickles?"

" _M-hm!_ " She took one, cupping a hand under her chin while she took a bite. "Cravings," she said, mouth full. "Pihhles, pohaho chips, and..."She swallowed. "Pencils."

"Pencils?"

"I don't eat them, but I keep chewing through nubs."

Oliver felt like laughing, but didn't.

"Wahn somme?" Maggie asked through another mouthful.

Oliver shook his head on account of the firm grip she had around the jar.

"Here," she said, handing him a coffee instead. "Sorry, ran out of sugar—had to use coco powder instead."

"Thanks," he said. The mug was warm against his stump and sleeved hand—his version of holding it in both hands. Maggie sat across from him in the kitchen, eating her pickles.

Oliver had an earworm:

 _'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious...  
um-dittle-ittl-um-dittle-I,_  
 _um-dittle-ittl-um-dittle-I,_  
 _um-dittle-ittl-um-dittle-I,_  
 _um-dittle-ittl-um-dittle-I...'_

An irritating earworm.

He wondered if Morgan had found Carol yet, if Daryl, Glenn, Rosita, Michonne and Sasha were okay. He wished he had some crystal ball, like in his fantasy books, to find out what they were all doing through the glass.

Oliver got another head ache.

 ** _You're meant to wear Pat's glasses._**

Oliver had taken them off at the gazebo and put them in his breast pocket. He _would_ wear them. Just, wanted to finish his coffee first. Oliver got this idea that what went into the water might not even matter at all, not the coffee or the carrot or the egg. What mattered was who would come along to consume it all.

This idea didn't really help with the worrying though.

Oliver took another sip. It was lukewarm. He wondered if this was intentional because Maggie was worried he'd try to burn himself, or perhaps he wanted to do that and was disappointed because he couldn't. He couldn't tell.

Maggie said something.

"What?" Oliver asked.

She watched him. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Oliver said.

Maggie's eyes were like Glenn's—wise and brown and trustworthy. She stepped over to him and began to play with his hair.

"Enid took my shift for me earlier," she said. "Yeah, I didn't see it coming either. Think I'm finally getting through to her."

Oliver pursed his lips. "You got through to her a long time ago. It just took her a while to come round it."

Oliver didn't see, but felt Maggie's smile fill the room. She gave him a gentle stroke under his ear, and Oliver leaned into it. He stopped and turned to face her.

"I think, she's more about little favours," he said, "you know, small gestures. Like, some coco, taking watch for a few hours, leaving a Granola bar out—I don't know, borrowing comic books and sweatshirts. She's cool, like that, but sometimes it's hard to notice. She'll seem mean or rude but she doesn't mean to be. She's just... well—"

"A teenager."

Oliver was just going to say _Elusive_ but that worked just as well. He looked up at her. She was so beautiful, sometimes she looked out of place in the end of the world.

"I'm sorry," Oliver said, "for yelling at you this morning. I didn't mean to get so mad. And... I'm sorry about yesterday. You don't know about it, but I hit Glenn."

Maggie's eyebrows jumped up into her forehead. She inhaled. She put her hand on his shoulder and narrowed her eyes, and then she smiled.

"Carol's gonna be okay," she told him. "She will. They all will."

Oliver threw back the rest of his beverage, then stood up.

"I'm gonna look for Enid," he said, glancing at Maggie to check she wasn't suspicious of him. "Yeah... don't think Scott found her. Back in a bit."

"Keep your gun on you," she said.

"Stay ready for a fight," Oliver said back.

"Like Rick said."

* * *

Oliver didn't get more than two streets before he found Enid.

"Did you find her?" Enid hugged him. "I was so worried about you."

Oliver shook his head. "We didn't find her. Morgan's still out there."

Enid never hugged him like this before. Not even the morning after Carl was shot. Not even when she and him were rolling around inside her bedsheets. It took Oliver off guard. She pulled away and looked at him. He didn't know what he looked like but betted it was tired and achy.

"Maggie's looking for you."

"I know," Enid told him. "Scott just told me. I was on my way over. Come on."

As they walked, Enid seemed nervous, fidgeting with her hair and hands.

"So," Oliver said, "you took Maggie's watch?"

Oliver remembered who had been his shrugging influence when Enid dished out a signature shrug so severe he was tempted to groan at her.

"So what?" she asked.

"Just, never seen you hold a gun before."

She gave another shrug, this time indifferent.

"I've never seen you in glasses," she said.

Oliver huffed a chuckle. "Fine. You win."

"You really never saw me with a gun before?" Enid asked.

Oliver shook his head. "Heard a rumour though."

"Rumour?"

"The one where you may or may not have pointed one at Glenn's face one time."

Enid poked a tree while they passed it, like she was telling it to stay where it was. They crossed the street. Oliver waited for her to confirm, but she just shrugged again.

"Rumours are stupid."

Oliver rolled his eyes even though he was aching to hear the story.

On their way past the brownstone apartments, Oliver let slip that Morgan built a prison cell inside. Enid didn't believe him, and to be honest, Oliver wasn't sure he believed it either, so they took a look through the windows. It was there, alright. Brick walls, an iron welded gate and steel bars over the windows. Enid was more upset that she didn't know about it already rather than the fact that Alexandria now had a prison cell. Oliver didn't much have an opinion yet.

"You were right," Enid whispered, pressing her face to the glass. "I really am losing my touch." Oliver reached out and used his thumb to rub the dirt off her nose.

"You're fine, Tink."

She had a look like she wanted to say something, but instead she said nothing and reached into her breast pocket, presenting two dragonfly wings on her open palm.

"What..." Oliver whispered—whispering felt necessary right now, like breathing or orbiting the sun. "What are they?"

"My wings," she said, like it was obvious.

"Oh," Oliver said back, because it was.

He blinked at them. Rainbows glistened in their fragile, glassy surfaces—some parts damaged and broken. Then he blinked at her—at all of _her_ glistening-rainbow-fragile-glassiness, and saw the parts of her, too, that were damaged and broken.

"How do we put them back on?" he asked. Oliver had an amplified empathy for body parts that were gone that shouldn't be. It was as bad as when people were gone who shouldn't be.

Enid smiled, like she was aware of all this.

"You don't," she shrugged, "sorry."

This made Oliver genuinely sad, even though he knew this wasn't real. It wasn't like she'd really lost her wings, but it _was_. Enid told him he didn't need to be sad for her. She said, "Just because they were gone, it doesn't mean I still can't fly..." and Oliver almost leant forward and kissed her, but caught himself, thinking she deserved her wings the same way trees deserved the rain, the same way a parent deserved their child, the same way a sad soul deserved to be okay.

He wiped his eyes and whispered to her, "Sorry. I... I wish you had them back."

"Yeah," Enid shrugged.

Oliver wiped his eyes again, sniffed, and said, "What...what do we do with them?"

Enid tilted her hand. Oliver rushed to catch one of the wings as it tumbled onto his palm, fluttering there a moment before he protected it from the breeze with his inner right elbow. He held up his wing in front of hers, fingertips touching.

"Make a wish, okay?" she said.

"Okay..."

He shut his eyes because she'd shut hers, and on the count of three they both blew onto their palms. Oliver felt the cool air around his face and neck and beanie hat. When he opened his eyes again, Enid's were still shut and her eyebrows were furrowed. The pixie wings were gone. Oliver was half convinced that some of Enid's kind had hopped up onto their hands mid-breath, grabbed her wings, and skipped off to bury them for her.

 _Is this what happens when a fairy loses their wings?_ he wondered. _They wish with them instead of fly with them?_

Enid's eyes opened.

"What was your wish?"

Oliver made a zip-motion with his fingers against his mouth to say he wouldn't tell her, lying, because in truth he hadn't made one. He wanted her to have his wish. To Oliver, Enid Cholle was worth giving up a wish for.

"What was yours?" he asked her.

She shook her head.

"I gave it to you."

* * *

At Maggie's, Enid knocked on the door, neatening her hair anxiously.

"Pull it together, sport," Oliver whispered. "And do four knocks, not just two."

"Why?"

 _For good luck, duh,_ Oliver thought, but said, "I don't know, just do it," instead. With a frown, she knocked another two times just as Maggie answered the door. Enid adjusted her _(Oliver's)_ striped T-shirt and smiled.

"Uh, Scott said you were looking for me?"

Maggie's hair was wet.

"Err, I should go?" Oliver asked, wondering if he knew what Maggie wanted now.

"No, no," she said, "I'd like you to stay."

Oliver knew better than to piss off the pregnant lady.

"What's up?" Enid asked.

Maggie handed over a pair of kitchen scissors. "Need some more help."

* * *

Carl had been drawing for hours.

It was a self-portrait. He was going to call it _GLASS BOY_ and it him crawling across the page, folded and writhing with a cubist face—Carl had never tried anything cubist before, but he'd seen it in a book about _Picasso._ It was turning out alright. His face was all sharp edges and fragile hardness, only... broken. Nobody would recognise it was even him was it not for the way the shattered part started at his right eye. He'd drawn large fragments crumbling away around him, broken glass that once was his features cutting deep into his hands and knees and elbows. He'd used chalk to dark-out the whole way around the page edges.

The only colour on the page was from the crimson crayon he was using now (which was Judith's because he didn't have anything else the right colour). He drew the blood, smeared it over graphite hands and pant legs, dripping from his crystal face. He was almost done. Close to perfect. Carl felt _wild—_ grinding his teeth and gripping his fringe, and then...

" _Dammit!_ "

That last skew of colour, a slip... too much. It. Ruined. The. Whole. Drawing.

"DAMMIT!"

It was garbage at his fingertips. He tore it up and threw it across his bedroom. Broken glass-boy shards fluttered to the floor at his feet anticlimactically, and then everything else on his desk was joining it, pencils and erasers, empty shotgun shells—all clattering across his floor as he flung his arms across his desk. He kicked his chair and it hit the floor on its side with a loud bang.

He glared at the mess, fists clenched, and then he wound down and put everything back again. Carl was almost finished when there was a knock at his door.

"Yeah?"

His father stepped into the room, Judith on his hip. "Y'alright?"

"Fine." Carl wasn't. He shoved a crystal paperweight that he'd been using as the visual reference back onto his desk, then leaned forward and sighed. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"I was just... Well, I heard... you."

Carl turned to him, but didn't make eye contact, instead sat on the edge of the desk. The handle on his drawer had snapped and Carl made a small effort to knock it back into place with his heel.

Rick watched him. Carl couldn't tell what he was thinking, but he seemed worried—not a surprise since the Saviors were looking for them, and others were all not back yet, and everybody seemed to be aware of the feeling that it'd be a very complicated and strenuous amount of time before all of this would be rectified. Still, it wasn't something they talked about.

"Carl," Rick said. "Everything's gonna be okay."

Carl bit his mouth as not to say anything, thinking— _We're vulnerable and most of us are gone and the sun forgot to shine today and Oliver wouldn't kiss me._ He took a breath and said, "Okay."

"Okay," Rick said.

"Did you need anything?" Carl asked.

"No." Rick still went ahead and took a seat on Carl's bed, letting Judith roll off of his lap and land in an ungraceful heap on the comforter. She picked herself up and sat quietly beside her father, messing with his holster. "Just wanted to talk to you," Carl's father went on. "Catch up. It's been a while."

Carl watched the door and waited for his dad to leave through it.

"You sure you're alright?"

"Yeah, Dad, just... tired."

His dad probably hoped Carl didn't remember that morning the Claimers arrived at the suburb, when he'd told him the same thing. Carl didn't speak of it, but he remembered.

"What're you drawing?" his father asked.

"Nothing."

"C'mon." Rick smiled in earnest. "Let me see."

" _No,_ Dad."

Rick sat back in defeat.

Carl deflated.

"They're not to see," he said, softer.

"Then... what do you draw them for?"

"Myself."

Rick smiled.

" _What_?" Carl bit at him. "I don't have to do everything for something all the time. Sometimes I can just _do things_. I can run without being chased and I can shut my eyes without shooting a gun and..." _and I can kiss and I can touch and I can screw without it meaning anything… can't I? Why...why can't I do that?!_ He shook his head and shut his eyes. "I can get sad over stupid things, just because I can, okay?"

And then Rick's eyebrows softened into place on his face. He looked at his daughter and put a hand on her head. She pushed up his thumb so it wasn't covering her eyes.

"You're sad."

Carl realised he'd made a mistake because it wasn't a question.

"I'm just _tired._ "

Rick shook his head.

"I'm not trying to start a fight, Carl."

Carl grabbed his hat, pushed it down over his scruffy hair, and left. He made it downstairs before realising he'd left his notebook open on the desk, so he went back—perhaps he wanted his father to see, perhaps then it might not've felt like such a big bad secret, if he just knew the things he saw in his head... Either way, Carl crept up the stairs. He could hear his father still in his room, talking to Judith.

"When did he become such a teenager, huh? Yeah... I know. When did _I_ start lettin' him get away with it?"

From the end of the hallway, Carl saw through the crack in his door as his father stood up and stepped over to the desk. He looked confused, like he knew it wasn't the usual notebooks Carl drew in. He shook his head and stepped for the door—Carl backed up—but then he turned back. Carl hated him, for a second, until he admitted to himself that he was strangely okay with this. Easier to be now, since his father didn't know he was watching. He could get an authentic reaction, whether it be good or bad.

His dad opened the first page. It was blank. The second, too. Carl never drew on the first three or four pages. They were good for keeping the rest of the pages protected. Carl couldn't see, as his father's back was turned from him, but he knew what was there. The first drawing was of two hands. One was clenched in a fist and the other was gripped around its wrist, the skin bunched and white. He took inspiration from what he remembered the night he lost his eye, only, he'd added the ball of light clenched inside the closed fist, his fist, with long shards of brightness escaping through the gaps in his fingers. It was called _HAND HOLDING HAND HOLDING LIGHT._ The sad part, Carl felt when he finally stopped to examine it, was than neither hand was holding back.

Rick turned over. It would have been the drawing called _CRASH_ , of two mouths, one in chalk and the other in pale crayon colours, their shades crushing and smashing together into a kind of kiss that Carl felt embarrassed his father was looking at. One lip had a scar.

Rick seemed to hesitate then. Carl, too, felt a bit too exposed. He crept down the stairs quickly, then stomped back up as loudly as he could. He heard his father jump.

"Dad?" Carl called out, panicking a bit. "You, uh... You know if there's more kindling, for the fire?"

"Erm, I'll go get some!"

Carl went downstairs. His father came down a moment later and set his daughter down on the rug, then left the house with his axe.

* * *

Maggie wanted Enid to cut her hair or her. Enid was too nervous to do it, at first, but settled when Oliver offered to be a guinea pig. He sat in the chair in the living area and let Maggie and Enid consult each other over what to do. Oliver didn't pay much attention, but heard things like, "But Oliver's hair is crazier than yours, it'll end up different." "Maybe." "Oliver, what do you think?"

He didn't care. Either too depressed or not enough opinion on these things, or perhaps he was just enjoying himself.

Maggie took a breath and turned to Enid. "Look, you make it too short or uneven, I won't mind. Vanity isn't really somethin' I'm worried about."

"I know," Enid told her, "I just... I feel..."

 _Hot damn,_ Oliver thought, _is Enid about to talk about her feelings?_

She shook her head, deciding, _No, definitely not,_ and instead said, "I mean, Oliver needs a haircut anyway. Few more months he'll turn into Chewbacca, or worse... _Daryl_."

Maggie laughed. Enid looked exceptionally proud of herself for that.

"Plus," Enid said, "I need to get payback." Oliver's hand came up to his ear—Enid still had a small scab on hers.

Maggie got the scissors.

Maggie and Glenn's house was nice—simple and bright and clean, with books and scented candles and pretty blue and brown lamps. It looked a lot different from when the Anderson's used to live here, which was good; less ghosts. The window was replaced entirely a few months ago—Noah did it himself.

Enid cut Oliver's hair shorter than he'd ever worn it before. Not bald or a crew-cut, but Oliver definitely startled several times at how much fell at his feet. Maggie was grinning from the armchair across the room, grinning into her arms in that way you do when you can't decide if what you're watching might be the most entertaining thing you've ever seen or the most bewildering. Oliver tried to ignore her, but didn't do a good job. His cheeks were red and so much hair was gone he felt a breeze.

 _Don't look like Dad,_ he prayed. _Don't look like Dad. Please, don't look like Dad...  
amen._

Finally, Enid set down the kitchen scissors on the island and passed him the blue hand-mirror.

"What do you think?"

What _did_ Oliver think?

"Shit..." He had to turn the mirror away for a second. He'd expected to see his father, prepared for it, but it was Patrick who glared back at him.

"Oh, God, you hate it!"

"No, no, I... I just forgot I had his glasses on."

Enid relaxed. Thankfully, he and Pat weren't identical, which helped—not because he didn't want to look like him but because looking like your dead older brother was something Oliver just didn't want to do. Enid had left some more on the top than Patrick had, still short on the back and sides, but sitting in wavy directions all over Oliver's forehead and temples just above his eyebrows.

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I do."

Maggie next. When it was finished, it looked longer on the sides than Oliver's, prettier, more serious. Maggie picked up the mirror and watched her reflection.

"I like it," Enid told her. "But why?"

Maggie brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Oliver, too, had been raking his fingers across the back of his head a lot since setting himself down here.

Maggie took a deep breath.

"I have to keep going," she answered. "And I don't want anything gettin' in my way."

 _Me too,_ Oliver thought _. Maybe..._

Enid looked up at him across the room and smiled. Oliver mouthed, "Thank you," to her, meaning it. He didn't think he'd ever seen Enid look so proud of herself.

 _You have such a good soul, Enid,_ he thought. _You really do. It's just been dragged through an awful lot of thorns._

Just then, Maggie tipped forward, dipping her head.

"Man, did I go too short?" Enid stuttered. "I... I only used to cut Nell's and my dad's."

"No, it's not that," Maggie said, breathless. She held her stomach and bit her mouth.

"Maggie?"

Oliver tensed up, thinking what he always thought. How this baby was a baby and that they all turn when— **_Stop it._** This was just another morning sickness thing. Denise would say it was normal. _The baby's just growing,_ he thought, _You'll see._ In a moment Maggie would sit up and smile and complain, like every other time, and they would go on with their day without thinking about—

She moaned, doubling over and collapsing to the floor.

"Maggie..." Enid muttered. "Maggie!"

Oliver was knelt in front of her. "Maggie?!"

And then she was screaming.

* * *

 **Notes**

I'm moving into my uni halls today, wish me luck, and also I owe whoever's been reading this story a huge thanks, since I wouldn't be going to study creative writing if you guys weren't here reading and supporting. You're beautiful and you've just fucking helped, okay? Okay. Cool.

I don't know why Carl is an artist in this. He just has been since the start, to me. Think it's because he carved that _one_ unicorn or something in the comic and I was like, done, yep, he's definitely like an unrecognised apocalyptic Michelangelo. Plus, I'm still reading I'll Give You the Sun and Noah is my hero.

I'm considering writing this story in different persons and tenses depending on how I feel. I know I'm not meant to as a writer but fuck it this is fanfiction I should be able to do whatever I want so long as it doesn't hurt anybody.

Thanks, **Rolochan** , for the prompt to get his hair cut.

As always,  
Happy reading.


	27. Last Day on Earth, Part 1: LockLoveLive

**The Flash Fanatic** I think I missed replying to you. I'm sorry! And I'm sorry you're sad!

 **TheDarkerSide123** He's trying very, very hard :3

 **The Sorrowful Deity** Haha, he actually has a bunch of NSFW drawings of him and Oliver together but luckily Rick didn't see those xD

 **RHatch89** ^-^ thanks!

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** Thank you! And I'm glad you're back on!

 **DampishPoet** DO IT!

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** Thank you! Yeah, I guess Rick's got a lot to think about rn.

 **Guest** T.T Your review... thank you.

* * *

 _Thanks for the good luck! Uni is beautiful and inspiring and people are scary but apparently it's easy and fun to talk to them when you're very drunk, so... anyway! There's a professor here that looks like Carol with long hair and I took her class purely because of that and I REGRET NOTHING (she also wears semi-ballgowns to class *.* so, just, yes)_

* * *

It's actually Oliver's 20th birthday today (the show is still in 2012 so he's still 16 in the story) so I thought I'd post a birthday special chapter for him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YOUNG SIR!

On Tumblr, to celebrate, andytweed drew Oliver and Carl! IT'S SO FUCKING CUTE AND PEACEFUL AND BEAUTIFUL, and I drew a _season 6/7 Oliver De Luca_. You'll find them on _andytweed_ 's blog, or mine _notmuchmoretosay._ Or just search for _Oliver De Luca_ or _Stale M &M's _or _Caliver_.

P.S. Andy's should be the cover photo now.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

Enid follows me into the Armoury while Dad and Oliver are helping Maggie get to the RV. We're taking her to Hilltop—they have a doctor. She's got her coat on. I'm already stuffing guns and ammo into the duffel Dad told me to fill.

"Glenn's still not back," Enid tells me. "I need to be there for Maggie."

"I said _no!_ "

"Carl—"

"Look, you were _wrong_ before. This place isn't too big to protect."

She watches me. "Wait, you remember that?"

"You and Oliver need to stay and help protect this place," I say.

"Are you kidding me? Oliver's not gonna let you go without him and I'm not about to either. This place is ready. Most of us have been trained—you know that. If you were worried about an attack you wouldn't be leaving."

I turn to her, wondering how she did that—read me so easily. Am I just that transparent?

"Do you know how far the Hilltop is?" I snap at her. "D'you know what could happen? The Saviors are _out there_. You know what they did to Denise. What they _tried_ to do to Oliver, and Maggie and Carol. To Daryl. To Rosita. To Eugene. That's not happening to you. Alright? I'm not gonna let it."

I turn away and keep stocking.

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

I watch Rick circle in front of the RV, talking to Sasha.

"She's getting worse."

He throws a red duffel inside.

In the back, on the bed, Maggie's hand is gripping mine hard as I kneel on the floor beside her. Occasionally, when she lets go, I stroke her hair out of her eyes, but another wave of pain rolls through her body and she have to hold my hand again.

"Good call on the transport," Abraham tells Rick.

"I figured she'd be more comfortable."

"You got room for more? They're out there, Rick, so I'm gonna be there with you. We are."

"Package deal," Sasha says.

"What she said," Eugene confirms, and they all get to helping load up.

"Hey, Mags," Sasha says, coming in and kneeling beside me. "You and that little one'll be _fine._ Promise you." She kisses her forehead, then mine, taking my face in her hands. Sasha has very soft hands. She whispers to me, "You are doing good." She leaves to sit in the passenger seat beside Abraham. He rubs her leg and gives her a nod.

Rick tells me to go help load up. As I pass him, he pats my hip and says, "It'll be okay." I look at him, then walk away, thinking — _Why are you all acting like this? It's Maggie who needs attention, not me._

I wonder if perhaps I look anxious or panicked. I'm sweating, I know that, and when I look at my hand it's shaking, but I didn't know that. I busy myself and put both extremities in my hoodie pocket, then get to work.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

"You wanna run into them, right? The Saviors?" Enid's onto me now, hitting the nail on the head. "You _hope_ they show up."

I look at her, careful not to look in her face.

"Jesus! This is about getting Maggie to a _doctor_! Not about— _Screw you,_ I'm going!"

"Enid, _stop_! Just... wait."

"Move."

I don't, and she yells in my face. I get overwhelmed, all of a sudden. I think of Oliver. I think of his face when he watches her die out there. I think of how much he'll blame himself and how it will drive him right over the edge and how desperately selfish I am for doing this and how _damn_ much I need him to be okay.

"Alright," I say, then look at her. "Alright... Grab some pistols from the closet. But _hurry._ We gotta go now." She does as I say. I holster my gun. She's mumbling something about one handed rifles for Oliver and I'm watching her, picking my moment—"I've seen movies with them, and read books. _Sawed-off_ shot guns, I think they're called, but, until we find something like that it's probably better for him to stick to his—"

I shut the closet door and wedge a chair under the handle. I back away with my hands up like she might shoot me from inside for this and there's this strange moment—this strange moment where Enid hasn't realised what I've done yet.

"Carl?"

She tries the handle. The moment snaps. She hits the door and I flinch.

"Dammit!" she shouts. "Carl? _Carl!_ "

I pull Bean back.

Enid starts crying.

"What happens if you don't come back?" She hits the door again. I grab the duffel. "Like Nell? _Jesus_ , Carl! How am I supposed to live with that again? What the hell am I supposed to do?"

I swallow hard and shake my head.

"Just survive somehow."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

Rick and Gabriel are talking. Aaron's coming along now, too. Carl and Bean are heading over from Enid's with a duffel bag full of guns. She must still be gathering supplies.

Carl's wearing his hat. He glances at me under it, and half smiles. _Pretty,_ I think. He puts the guns in the RV and comes back out just as I'm heading in, so I step aside, and just as he passes me, he hooks my sleeve with his finger and whispers, "Can you come with me?"

Frowning, I nod and follow him across the street.

"Boys," Rick calls out when he notices. "Where you going?"

Carl stumbles over his sentence, and then Sasha climbs out of the RV and says over her shoulder to Abraham, "Back in a sec, gotta get the water."

I don't miss the way Carl's face blows up.

"We're getting it," he says. "Right, Oliver?"

"Err… yeah."

"Back in a minute. We'll hurry." Before they argue, Carl walks away. I watch him, then Bean and I follow him towards our street.

"There's water in the pantry, man."

"We can't go to the pantry," Carl says. "The, uh... There are bottles at home."

"Okay."

At his house, we go about filling as many bottles of water as we can find. He's got a new gun—a Beretta. When he lets me take a quick look, I realise it was Paula's, but I don't tell him that. It has some kind of weird carving on the handle, like a rowing paddle with a line around it or something.

"Do you think we'll come across the Saviors?" he asks me.

I frown at the sink. "I hope not."

Carl sighs.

I look at him. "Why?"

He shrugs, closing a full bottle and leaving it on the couch. He looks miserable when he comes back. I figure after everything I've said to him today and everything that happened last night, I should at least _try_ to lighten his mood, so I hand him another full bottle, thinking— _take this and don't be so sad because of me please_. He twists the top on and tosses it across the room to land on the growing pile, looking even more unhappy.

 ** _What did you expect?_**

I wrack my head for something, anything. He seems to want to talk about the Saviors, so—"Hey, what do you think Negan is like?"

Carl looks at me, blinks. Did he hear me right? Did I muddle my words? Did I even manage to open my mouth? I must have because he shrugs, watching me fill up another bottle.

"They aren't one specific person though, right?" he replies. _We are all Negan,_ has sort of become a term that all Alexandria knows now; whispered around like an old wives' tale.

"I imagine them as the Bogeyman," I tell him, making it into a game now—Carl likes those. "Maybe like a big hoard of them to make up one huge dude. _Great_ and _tall_ and _dark._ "

He smirks this tiny bit. "They've probably got good hair, all gelled."

"Oh yeah. And they drop f-bombs in _every_ sentence," I say, "but, like, in a super clever way like it's cool and really fucking scary at the same time."

"Nice example."

"Thanks, man—oh, dammit." I'm overfilling the next water bottle and have to rush to switch off the tap. Carl laughs and I smile all the way down to my toes, so then we're just smiling at each other, smiling like we live in the same planet rather than millions of lightyears apart like usual.

I remember I'm not supposed to want that anymore — _right, yes_ — so I turn away and hand him the bottle. He takes it, twists on the lid, throws it across the room. "But, you know, they're biting off more than they can chew. Because we'll finish them. All of them. They're pretty much dead already."

The conversation dies a little then because Carl is frowning like he's only just remembering something. For all I know he _is;_ sometimes his memories hit him like a baseball bat. I know enough not to ask him what it is, so I go about filling more bottles until we can't find any more.

"Water purifiers," Carl says to me. "They're in the utility room, the cupboard above the sink."

The cupboard is up high, so I have to climb on top of the counter; a knee on the top and a boot in the sink. Carl checks the back door.

"Why do we need purifiers? The water here's clean."

"What about Hilltop?" Carl replies. "You heard the others, they said the place reminded them of an old western movie."

I scoff. "What about the huge fancy house right smack in the middle of it? Pretty sure that's got a filtration system."

"Just _get_ them."

"Alright, alright." I look some more. He's moving something around in the living room. I find a book called _Twenty Natural Laundry Soap Alternatives,_ but no purifiers. "Man, I'm telling you. There _aren't_ —"

The utility room door shuts and something scuffs against it from the other side. My stomach drops. Bean, who is in here, exchanges a glance with me.

I climb down quickly.

The handle twists but something jams the door from opening. I push it. Push again, harder. It doesn't budge. Backing away, I stand and fidget. I try the back door. Locked, no key. Same with the window.

Carl locked me in?

I touch the handle and hold it, thinking what I always think in utility rooms, what I always try so hard not to get bothered by. All the therapy and the breathing exercises and coping mechanisms. They shrivel up and die.

 _Claimed._

"Let me out, Carl."

The scruff of Bean's neck is smooth and comforting in my hand, but I still struggle through a new panic attack.

"Let me out," I whisper again. "Please, man... I... I can't stay in here."

"I'm sorry," I hear.

Bean scratches at the door.

My breath is too fast—these horrible groany noises coming out of me.

"Please," I cry. "I can't stay in here, man!"

The flashbacks are brutal...

Being touched and asking not to be.  
Getting hurt, and told to enjoy it.  
Fingers, forcing.

 _Stop your squirming._

I start shouting. I don't know what I say but I know it's loud. I'm hitting the door. Screaming, "Don't do this again don't leave me behind _please!_ "

And he just says, "I'm sorry, Oliver."

"I hate you..." I sob— _because I love you, and you are leaving me._ _God damn it, Carl—_ "I hate you so much."

"I gotta go."

"No!"

"Bye."

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

"Where's Oliver?"

"Staying."

"Enid?"

"Her, too."

"Oh."

"Figured it was better to keep numbers here."

"Good."

"Yep."

* * *

Later, when the sun's a few hours from setting, Dad gets up, steadying himself against the swaying of the vehicle. He grabs a bottle of water and goes to Maggie in the bedroom. She drinks a little, but has to stop when she begins hurting again.

"What the bitch?"

"What?" Dad asks, marching to the front compartment. I get a glimpse of what's on the road: Two trucks and one smaller pale-green car, along with around eight armed men, possibly more, and one man we don't know laid along the road in front of them.

"Enemy close," Abraham warns, pulling to a stop. "We doing this?"

"No," Dad answers.

Maggie excluded, we arm up and exit the RV. Dad puts his automatic up in the air. The rest of us take no action in raising our own weapons. We just walk out in front of the vehicle and stand in formation, a hundred yards between us and the Saviors.

I'm done taking crap from these assholes.

The Savior standing over the stranger says, "He's someone who was with a whole lota someones who didn't listen."

"We can make a deal," Dad says, "right here, right now."

"That's right, we can."

I wonder if maybe he's Negan. In my head, after all this time knowing of only them and their persona, I'd kind of imagined Negan as a merge of all of them. I guess this guy could be them, although, he's skinnier than I thought; wearing a dark shirt and boots and jeans, with combed-back, greying hair and a moustache. 61% Negan, I'd estimate. The kind of man who probably worked in a shitty gas-station before.

"Give us all your stuff," he instructs. "We'll probably have to kill one o' you—that's just the way it is, but then we can start movin' forward on business. All you have to do is listen."

Dad groans. " _Yeah..._ That deal's not gonna work for us. Fact is, I was about to ask for all o' _your_ stuff, only I'm thinkin' I don't have to kill any of you. Any _more_ of you."

Another man steps forward. Possible Negan candidate number two: a little shorter, reddish blonde crew-cut hair, tanned skin and a paint can in his hand. 22% Negan, I'm thinking. He's shaking the can like Oliver will shake his inhaler, then he crouches down and sprays a large orange _'X'_ on their captive's front. His score bumps up to 30%.

He steps back again, glaring.

Dad is glancing around at our surroundings, looking unimpressed and bored and like he's got places to be because he does. We all do.

"Sorry," 61% says, "my deal is the only deal. We don't negotiate."

Dad nods. He waves us all back towards the RV.

"Me and my people are leaving," he explains.

The 61% waves.

"Okay, friend! Plenty of ways to get to where you're goin'."

We're inside the RV. Aaron is telling Maggie that the voices outside are nothing, to try to rest.

"You wanna make today your last day on Earth?" Dad's saying outside.

"No," 61% answers, voice rough. "But that is a good thing to bring up. Think about it. What if it's the last day on Earth for you? For someone you love? What if that's true? Maybe you should be extra nice to those people in that RV, 'cause you never know..." He snaps his fingers and some small thing inside me flinches. I tell that small thing to go screw itself. "Just like that... Be kind to each other. Like you said—like it was your last day on Earth."

"You do the same..." Dad returns.

The RV door shuts. Abraham turns us around, and all we hear is the captive being beaten as we drive away.

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

For the tenth or fifteenth time, I take a running start towards the living room—"Agh!"—and I bounce off the door like my PT ball. I sit up, groaning and hissing through my teeth, and try again. "Gah!" "Fugh!" "Shit!" "Nyah!" "Argh!" _Crack!_

 _God,_ I think, landing hard on my back while Bean fusses over me, _I hope that noise wasn't me._ I pat myself down. _Good... It wasn't._ Lying in a heap of pain and exhaustion on the floor, I decide that this is useless. These doors are solid and all I'm doing is wedging the chair firmer outside. I could break the window, but there's nothing in here to use except my fist, and since I only have one, the logic in damaging it is not in good favour.

 ** _Alright, time to reassess the situation. Time to think with your brain._**

I sit up and hold my head and groan through my teeth until an idea comes to me. Finally, I crouch at the door. I wiggle my finger through the thin gap under it and imagine all of me stretching through like Mister Fantastic.

 ** _Stay on topic._**

Grunting, I stoop down low on my elbows and knees and push my cheek against the floor to see if I can see under. I can; two chair legs are lodged against the floor opposite me about two feet or so away. If I find something long enough to dislodge them, the door should give.

"Okay, okay, okay, plan. Have a plan."

I search around for something thin enough and strong enough to fit through the gap. Lizzie's knife is thin enough, but barely reaches past the width of the door. I even try Patrick's glasses, but they threaten to snap under the pressure, so I stop; too short anyway.

Nothing inside cupboards. Dangerously close to another panic attack, I take deep breaths and look around in a full circle — _yes_ — The fold-up clothes rack. It's stacked neatly in the gap between the washing machine and the counter. With effort, I break four of the thin metal rods away from it with a few hard kicks, then, at the door again, I flatten myself to the floor and order them together in a neat row, sticking the make-shift tool through the gap.

They are long enough, but so thin and finicky that it's hard to get a good enough grip. I hit the end of them with the butt of Lizzie's knife, once, twice, and the rods dislodge one chair leg a little. A centimetre, maybe. I keep going, switching between legs, and they slip and slip and slip until... the chair tips forward under the handle, and all four legs clatter and wobble to the floor. My mouth is open. I'm sweating and stumbling to my feet. I touch the handle, twist, and the door opens.

"Cool..."

The RV is long gone. I'm too late. I'm so angry I'm beside myself for a minute, blaming Carl for everything, _I hate him I hate him I hate him,_ but then I start to get over it. I start to think. What to do? What to do?

 ** _Go to Hilltop?_** _  
No, that's dumb. Maggie'll get help either way._

Out the window, the sky is grey, like ash.

 ** _So, what do you do?  
_** _I'm only a kid. I can't do anything but stay here and wait.  
 **No, Oliver. Wrong answer.**_

An inhaler sits in my pocket, a Glock in my holster. I have a beanie on my head and hiking boots on my feet, and inside my skull I've got a brain with a whole storm full of messed up thoughts whirring around all over the place, but it all forms into one solid thought that I trust with everything I have left.

I sigh.

"Okay, Carol."

* * *

Inside the second house, I find my backpack and fill it with a flash-light, Lizzie's knife and watch, Patrick's glasses, and a permanent marker. There is also Tara's yoyo, my deer carving, a paper clip, and a book right at the bottom, but that's just because I didn't bother to take them out. In 101, I collect one of the three water bottles left over that Carl must not've been able to carry alone. Next, I go to the pantry and steal a small packet of trail mix and a foil bar of chocolate. Not leaving a note on the tally board puts a bad taste in my mouth, but I ignore it because I'm supposed to be an unrelenting burglar right now. Scab is napping on a shelf and I pet it.

"Bean?" I jump at the voice. It sounds small and shrill. "Bean, is that you?"

He went ahead of me to the armoury—where I was going to head next. I tiptoe in. Bean is bowed in front of the closet, sniffing under the door. There is a chair wedged under the handle.

"Bean!" Enid gasps from inside. "Ah, shit. Shit. Go get help? Shit, do you even know that command?" I open my mouth to say her name but stop short of it. Bean whimpers at me. Enid must know something's up. "Is someone there?"

I say nothing.

"Hello?"

I know why Carl did this now.

"Oliver?"

I hear her palm slide down the door, and then tap it, like she's pointing to me.

"You're there or you're not. Either way, you aren't gonna let me out because you're up to something... and..." She hiccups. " _God dammit,_ asshole, don't do anything stupid!"

I steal a hunting knife and search for more ammo, then Bean and I run for it, ignoring Enid's calls while I slam the door shut behind us.

* * *

 **Notes**

Sorry if reading numbers like 61% instead of sixty-one percent annoys you. It just looks blocky and less impactful spelt out to me. Special thanks to my mum who told me how to escape a room wedged by a chair. She also called Oliver an elephant for his first attempts. Also thanks to **TheDarkerSide123** for the typo list...

 **Preview: Oliver does all the stupid (sorry, Enid)**

As always,  
Happy reading.


	28. Last Day on Earth, Part 2: Whoohoo

**The Sorrowful Deity** Nah, he got a bunch done (he spared Oliver from seeing who Negan kills and sent him better towards Carol's arc, which he's either going to need or it's going to destroy him xD I haven't decided yet xD

 **DampishPoet** xD sorry, man

 **RHatch89** Thank you ^.^

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** Haha, well, I hope you liked it? xD

 **Bloon on my Machete** I came out to have a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now #Lucillemeplzthanks

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** :3

 **DarthGranola** hahaha _shhhhhh_ *that one gif that's amazing*

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

If there's mercy for the lost and vengeance for the plunderers, then what is there for the morally ambiguous?

 _"You're not just morally ambiguous, though,"_ Patrick tells me. _"It's not like you don't know why you're doing this."_

"Then what am I?" I ask him.

He thinks a second, but Nell talks over him...

 _"Morally ambiguous with reckless abandon."_

I scoff and shrug at them both, tell them, "Whatever," and then I kick the clinic door in. I don't think I need anything from inside but since it's empty in here I figure it's a good enough place to take refuge for a minute and make a real plan. I take the opportunity to steal a small first aid kit; just in case.

 _"Deep breaths, young sir."_

"Right, right."

I'm worked up, heart pounding, because I still haven't thought of a way that I am going to do this. This, as in, sneak the fuck out of Alexandria Safe Zone.

I mean, I'm not Carol.

On the second floor inside a spare room that smells of anti-septic, I peer through the window and survey who's on watch. I know already that Alexandria has twenty-four hour shifts set up on each of the watchtowers, and each one of them are fully supplied. We even have assigned drivers for evacuation _and_ distraction, too. I can't even wait for Gabriel to be on shift and trick him into letting me take watch for a few minutes because he'd never fall for it. Shocking, I know, but in the last seven months Gabriel Stokes has kind of become a bible thumping badass. He even carries a rifle now. In fact, he's the one that Rick's left in charge.

 _"So no way in."_

 _"Or out."_

"Fuuuck."

I know I need to be quick in leaving in order to make it far enough before somebody finds Enid. Her first thought outside of that closet is going to be me. Period. _She might even try to come after me._ I shake that thought away. _No, she wouldn't be stupid enough to leave this place again._

 ** _Stupid enough like you, you mean..._**

"Fucking fuck."

Composing myself, I grab up my backpack and shoo Bean downstairs. I take us to Maggie and Glenn's, empty, of course, and I rummage around in Maggie's schedules until I find what I'm looking for. As far as I'm aware, Spencer starts watch in ten minutes, by Lizzie's watch, but then again Lizzie's watch is possibly seven minutes late, which means I could only have three minutes until I can get any kind of window, so I prepare quickly.

Francine is on watch right now and I know she, along with Tobin and Scott, is one of the designated drivers, so, with the short amount of time I have, I break into her apartment (well, I use my hunting knife to dislodge the screen and climb through her window, at least) and steal her car keys. They have a weirdly shaped logo on the side that looks like the letters _AMC_ but could also just be a weird looking crab, and there is a small key-chain photo of a little boy with brown skin and short neat dreadlocks; must have been the kid of whoever used to own the car.

Now that _Part One: Get Out of the Closet_ of my plan is complete, I make a _Part Two: Escape_ —wait, no, scratch that. _Part Two: Sneak out._ Because this is only temporary and I am coming back.

First step of, said, part two – _prepare to go_ , complete.

Second step – _get on the other side of that wall,_ uh, in progress... It's just that more steps need to come into it, like a spider web of ideas. One idea: tell Spencer I'll take his shift. Another idea: I'll knock him out. Another: I'll climb over the wall at the blind-spot. And the final idea: I'll just open the gate myself and leave. Only, none of these are particularly promising ideas, because here comes the rational thinking... For one, on the first idea, if I took Spencer's shift it would leave that tower empty and Alexandria vulnerable for six hours, which is _not_ a good idea in the current circumstances, plus, I'd like to do this without anybody else clocking onto the fact that I was left behind because it gives me more time to get far enough away not to be dragged back kicking and screaming. The next idea is equally as unhelpful, plus, I know Spencer can be a bit of an ass-parade sometimes, but he hardly deserves a rock around the skull for it, and that's even if I'm at all strong enough to do it anyway. Climbing over the wall seems okay, but there's still the problem of stealing the car without anybody seeing. And the final idea, just leaving with no fucks given, well, as much as I am not Carol, I am _certainly_ not Daryl either.

I decide climbing the wall is the best option.

Enid chose this spot, the same spot Carl saw her sneak out by that first time, because it is just out of view of all points of watch, so, just as long as you keep your head down it's a sure-fire way to get in and out so long as nobody else inside their house spots you. I take the chance, and the hardest thing about it is the realisation that I'm going to have to leave Bean behind. It hurts like hell, actually, and I spend a few foolish minutes hugging him tightly enough he groans into my ear and has to wriggle away from me.

"Berry Blue Jelly Bean," I say, "you are my favourite beast."

His breath smells of cabbage and possum crap.

I hug him again.

"I'll be home soon."

Then I'm up and over and grounding myself on the other side of the wall and sneaking around the edge of Alexandria. Bean follows me the whole way on the opposite side, though he's staying surprisingly quiet; sniffing and stopping to pee every few moments. I guess it isn't surprising since he's seen me, Enid, and Carl sneak out countless times already. Though, when he realises that I've veered off towards one of the burned down houses, the same one I saw Enid in the day we got here, he does get upset. Very, _very_ upset. Luckily the dog only realises once I'm already inside a burned down house, because Spencer, who must have just gone on watch at the front entrance, doesn't notice me dodge to the side of the living room window. At least I think it was a window. Now it's more of a singed brick hole.

"Bean, boy, what's up?"

He's barking his brains out.

"Jesus," I grumble under my breath, "shut up."

He is at the gate. I can tell because it rattles against paws desperate to get out.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming," Spencer says, and my stomach drops. It isn't unheard off for some people on watch to simply let the dog out sometimes. Often, one of the most popular quarrels that Maggie has to deal with is if it's crueller to make Bean stay inside or to let him come and go freely, because we all know that he's still waiting on Nell to return. Well, he was. But since we returned from Lorton a few days ago he hasn't tried to leave once. Anyway, at the start, it was worst. He would go days without eating or drinking, and he would jump through windows to get into her's and Enid's old house and lie on her bed until somebody found him.

Now though, he is looking for me.

And Spencer is climbing down from the watch tower.

"Shit," I mutter, " _shit_."

A few moments pass, and I know I'm going to get busted. I sit and wait for it like a school kid in the naughty corner. Bean is going to come running and Spencer will know something's up and follow him and find me and take me to Gabriel and I'll get my rebellious little agnostic ass kicked in church, and anyway, it's going to be hard enough for me to find the car that this stupid key fits to in the first place, let alone get it out of here without being spotted like a walker in a silent room.

It's odd though, the gate doesn't open.

"Come on." Spencer's voice is far away. "Can't have you getting lost looking for him. Not right now. Let's go. They'll be back soon, boy."

 _Oh,_ I think in awe, _cool, they do think I left with the others._

 ** _Oliver, go!_**

I dash up and out of the hole in the wall, grinning up at the empty watch tower. I try the first car closest to Alexandria, but the key doesn't work in the door. Second either. But the third fits like magic, and what's more magical is the fact that it's hidden between both burned houses and I doubt anybody will even notice it's gone unless they're Sasha, and Sasha isn't here anyway. Carol probably would have preferred to take this one if the key she'd taken fitted it.

Carefully, I pull the dead body off of the long spike sticking out of the hood, and then I check through all of the windows that nothing or nobody is lurking in the back seats or the trunk. I learned to do this the hard way. One time when Patrick and I were driving in another time-zone, a walker sat up in the trunk and growled hello to us, and Patrick crashed the car into a ditch.

This car, however, looks clear, so I throw my backpack into the passenger seat, climb into the driver's, and start up the engine. The seats are leather and cracked and a little mouldy, and there's still an old take-away Starbucks left in the cup holder in front of the radio. In the back seat there is a bloody travel seat with torn open buckles. A short flashback of finding Judith's baby-carrier in a similar way makes me flinch, and I very carefully do not think of the little boy on the key-chain as I fit it into place and twist the engine to life.

There's not a lot of time, since the second house, which is presumably where Spencer will take Bean, isn't that far away from the front gate, so, once I reverse out from between the houses and turn around on the road, (because I am _the master_ of three point turns) I commence the third step of my plan to bring Carol home...

Drive.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

Finally, we're enough miles away from those bastards to park up in a place we couldn't have been followed to. I'm looking through the blinds and out the window across the large pasture next to the RV, still biting back that relentless rock in my throat. A walker is shambling towards us through the pasture, kicking through weeds and grass and struggling against rotted limbs and snagging clothes.

Aaron had been in the back with Maggie for a while, whispering quietly about apple sauce and pickles and Scab, but he's back opposite me now, and I'm thinking about if I did the right thing in locking Oliver and Enid at home. I think of Enid, and see her climbing walls, trees, crying with her back pressed to mine, her whole world weighing down on her shoulders, and then I think of Oliver and I get images of him seizing on a hospital bed and wheezing on the ground in the middle of an asthma attack, and other times of him screaming while a bloody stump is oozing and burning under a red hot iron. And I think of things I _know_ I remember, like how badly he was shaken after he and Carol and Maggie came back from the Saviors compound. How it took him days just to talk to me, and everything in my chest is saying, _I did okay. They shouldn't be out here._ _It gets worse, every time. I can't watch them die and I won't._ But everything in my brain is saying, _They're both_ _useful out here. They know how to take care of themselves. And, I'm not letting anyone die anyway._

For the millionth time today, Oliver sits at the front of my mind; his legs crossed in my frontal lobe with his forehead pressed to the inside of my skull. I close my eyes like shutting blinds only it fails because he's already inside.

 _That's good._

He said it last night and he said it again this morning, but he didn't mean it. He couldn't have. Did he even mean it last night?

Dammit.

He doesn't get to do that. He doesn't get to tell me one thing and mean another. How am I supposed to keep up with him? How am I supposed to fix this? Jesus Christ, I locked him in a utility room! There's no fixing that. Shit, he said goodbye. _I_ said goodbye.

We'll never get to be alright again. We'll never get to be just us.

Frustrated and desperate to get out of my own head, (if he's going to spend so much time in there I sure as hell won't) I look at Aaron and I ask him, "Why didn't you stay back and help guard the place?" He looks up to me, swallowing roughly, and I try to push the misery away from my expression but it doesn't work.

Aaron says, "I owe her."

He watches her. Maggie's fallen asleep. I look out the window and keep my mouth shut.

"Why did you come?" he asks me. I swallow the same way he did. Only I am not thinking about Maggie so much. She'll be okay. She just will be. Her and her baby — Dad says. No, what I'm thinking about is how much a bullet needs to find a home in every Savior skull I can find, because _that's_ what's going to happen today. So, slowly, I look back to him...

"I owe _them_ ," I answer.

Abraham is sat across from us watching the other side along the tree-line, his lip curled up in concentration. Sasha and Eugene are in front behind the front compartment discussing the route we're going to take. Lorgum Road, it sounds like. Good visibility. Something else about bum-rush from the bogeyman, I think. Anyway, it'll be a longer trip but Eugene says it's safer –also something else about dingles and glens but I can't be sure because I'm not fluent in _Mad-Scientist-but-Not-Really-Scientist-so-just-sort-of-Mad_.

"You're being serious, right?" Sasha asks sceptically. She spends more time with Eugene, so she's able to understand him.

"As coronary thrombosis," Eugene answers –this means _yes,_ I'm fairly sure. I know basics, at least. Though, to be honest I think I probably know more Italian. Dad crosses the RV to them.

"You got a route?"

"Yeah."

The walker that'd been outside has circled the RV and is now thrashing against the wall beside me. We ignore it. It'll be dark soon. Hour. Maybe less. Maybe more.

"Let's go," Dad says.

We only drive for another twenty minutes or so before Abraham pipes up again...

"Bitch nuts."

This startles me, since, a few seconds ago Abraham and Sasha were talking about being alive and living and having babies, but now Abraham is slowing the vehicle to a stop and my heart is barrelling to my throat. We all crowd the fronter compartments, and ahead in the road is another formation of vehicles and Saviors. This time it's five vehicles. Eleven men. No, fourteen – sixteen.

I'm furious.

"We make our stand?" Sasha asks.

"Yeah," I answer dryly, "we end it."

"No, not now," Dad says. I frown at him. "They've been waiting. They're ready. With one of us behind the wheel, that's, five on sixteen. We're gonna play it our way, how we want it. Right?" He checks back with me and after a moment I nod...

"Right."

Dad turns back to the driver. "Alright, go slow."

Abraham does, turning us around. Shots are fired; three lots of five or six bullets into the sky until we're far enough away not to hear it. We drive another few miles. I don't know how far or how long but nobody says a word. Tense and focused, that's the feelings that fill the RV; weigh it down like the engine is full of bricks. Maggie is getting worse. Aaron has resorted to just sitting by her side holding her hand and stroking her hair out of her forehead. She'll ask for Glenn and at first Aaron tells her he doesn't know where he is but then he just starts saying, "He'll be here soon. Everything's going to be okay, Maggie. Glenn's coming."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _If storms are breaking over great escapes  
Boy, we'll find how to make it with the rain  
This rage will lead us through the burning plains  
No matter what they say, we're heroes,  
Boy, we'll get to break out_

 _Now we're finally standing up to the sky  
Look at me, boy, what is fate to say  
How things are gonna turn out now?_

 _Can't you see that we're dead until we wake up  
All your dreams are about to happen how  
We are racing to the break of dawn..._

Taking the same route as before, I finally arrive again at the Saviour graveyard. Carol's porcupine car is still here, the truck, too, and the bodies. The sun is hidden behind clouds and everywhere looks grey and dismal and lonely. The gas meter is flashing, which tells me there isn't a lot of fuel left. I could take this road and hope it goes to the town that Morgan seemed to look like he was heading to, then continue on foot when the car dies. It might take longer but it's a safe bet, but then again...

Safety isn't really something I'm very concerned about today.

"WHOOHOO!"

The car rattles dangerously while I tear it east through the pasture we'd followed before. I crash through a fence, and wood panels snap off loudly and rocket past the windows. The wing mirror flies away with a _Crack!_ and my foot is pushed against the gas so hard it's aching.

I'm laughing at the top of my lungs.

 _This is stupid!  
I'm gonna die!  
Ohh, this is so stupid!  
 **BUT IT'S SO MUCH FUN!**_

"WHOOOHOOOO!"

I swerve around a rotten hay bale, keeping to the same route Rick, Morgan and I took earlier, though, just... a lot faster. Another fence. Crash through that, too. More screaming. Heart pounding. Hand tight around the wheel. Foot flattened to floor.

Hey, at least I have my seatbelt on.

In the next field, there is a sudden dip downhill that I'd forgotten about. My stomach flips when the car goes airborne for a second, and the rest of me screams ecstatically. The crash back down to earth jostles the whole world, and I shake the steering wheel and roar, swerving around a sudden small cluster of walkers that wonder out around that sheep trailer we'd passed before. I hit one and it splatters over the window screen, startling me enough that I screech, and then I laugh.

"Aw, _shit,_ you messed up my view, asshole!"

Its head snaps on the hood, and as if in reply to me it rolls off and flies past the window. I laugh, fiddling with buttons for the wind screen wipers. I find it, and—

Hay bale!

"Fuck!"

Swerve around it.

"Shit, that was close."

The farmyard is ahead. I can see it on the top of the hill, and I aim for it, windscreen wipers working fast and loud and useless, smudging rotten blood like paint. Then something weird happens. I notice a man stood off by the open gate. Walker, I think at first, and I crudely intend to drive right through him, too, but when he stops and turns around and puts his hand up over his eyes to squint at the car, his mouth forms what I lip-read as a small and weak, "What the fuck?" and I panic.

 _OHH,_ "SHIT!"

I swerve frantically to avoid him, and in all of this, the one thing I do not think to do is slow down, because then there is a bump and a _bkrrkk!_ and I swerve again to the right and something smashes and then there is a mouldy Starbucks flying across the interior and splattering over my face.

"FUCK!"

I plough through another fence, heading for something big and solid and unavoidable.

"AAAAHHHHHH!"

And I crash right into it.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _The Great Escape_ by Woodkid.

This was fun.

The phrase _'morally ambiguous with reckless abandon'_ was created by the amazing **_TheDarkerSide123_**. Thank you for letting me use it.

So, season seven starts next week...

As always,  
Happy reading.


	29. Last Day on Earth, Part 3: You Are Alive

**The Sorrowful Deity** xD yep

 **TheDarkerSide123** boi got Rekt m8

 **RHatch89** Thank you!

 **Random Fandom kid** Words to live by.

 **DampishPoet** Exactly xD

 **BoodGutsandChocolatePudding** xD I'm sorry

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** Thank you ^.^

* * *

 _Seriously, guys, thank you so much for all the support. It means the absolute world to me. *throws hearts and whatever the opposite of a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire looks like. You all deserve reverse-Lucille. Her amount of brutality but in thank you's._

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

"How are we on gas?"

"Half a tank. Pulled some more cans before we left."

"Those weren't the same men who blocked the road the first time."

"Same outfit, different soldiers. They got numbers."

"We keep driving. We get her there."

"We will."

"If we have to shove each and every one of them up their own asses."

But then the RV is slowing and my heart does that awful barrelling thing again. I look, so does everybody else. Chains and hand-cuffs rattle and a whole row of walkers are lined up across the road, blocking our path. Dad sighs.

"We can't go through it. Can't risk the RV. You stay behind the wheel, just in case." He un-holsters his gun. "We'll clear it."

We climb out. The ground is muddier here, trampled. It wasn't long since they left. We keep our eyes and ears open, keeping on our toes. The line of walkers shriek and growl and struggle.

"Puttin' together a red rover like that takes people," Eugene warns. "A lot of'm."

The chains wind not only around the walkers, but through them, curling into ribcage and gut, in one jaw, out through another. I look at them closely, which, ever since I'd started looking for Nell I have never gotten out of the habit of doing, even though I knew a long time ago that she was eaten whole and furthermore that I don't even remember what she looked like, apart from what I was told, but now, the habit proves useful, or horrifying, depending on how you look at it. Right now, though, I see it as horrifying, because I am staring at one particular walker, recognising the two, individual, black dreadlocks protruding out of a dug hole in its cheek. To my further horror, someone, also, has dressed it into a familiar brown waste coat.

"Come on, let's do this," Dad says, shouldering his automatic.

"Dad."

He stops, and I point with my finger and a hard and straight expression.

"That's Michonne's," Aaron notices, too.

"That one's Daryl's," Sasha says at another; green bolts buried through its chest. Dad looks closer. I'm not fully sure but I swear I see him shudder. My own feet shuffle and my cheeks bunch into a wince, but I pull myself together quickly.

Dad yanks Michonne's hair from the walker's face, and he's about to dispatch it, axe raised to do so, but gunfire rockets across the road at our feet. I'm aiming at the tree-line, shooting blind, one round after the other and hitting nobody but keeping their heads down as cover, ducking when gunshots tear past my head.

"GET BACK TO THE RV!" Dad roars. "GO!"

Inside, there's a backpack on the floor and I step over it but the strap catches my toes and I fall flat on my face outside the bedroom.

"What's goin' on?" Maggie cries weakly. I can't answer. Someone is tripping over me and someone else is yanking me to my feet, and we're watching everybody else pile inside. When I stand up I see Dad through the wind screen as he hacks through a walker's arm to open the barrier. I get flashes of him doing the same thing to me. Only not me. Somebody else's arm...

In a whisper, I remember, "Jessie."

"START IT UP!" Abraham growls over the fire-power. Dad is inside, slamming the door. The engine grinds into gear and lurches forward so fast that I fall back again, landing against something I only realise is Eugene when he's grabbing under my arm and helping pull me up.

I'll admit it. That shook me. Shook me right to my gut. Everybody else, too, by how pale their faces are and how hard we're all shaking. I'm watching my dad; he's still stood by the door, clutching Michonne's hair in his hand. I forget not to think of Oliver, because I'm wishing harder than anything that he was here and that I could hold his hand and bury my face into his shoulder. "They've got them," I would say to him, and Oliver wouldn't have to say anything. I would just say, "Oliver, they took them." Because I want nothing more than to let my front shatter and melt right inside of him, because when he hugs me like that I can feel safer than I do anywhere.

But Oliver is not here, because I likely just saved his life and the bastard should be damn well grateful for it, so, instead, I focus on pulling myself together, hardening my composure again, tuning all the fear into determination.

 _We are not safe.  
But nobody is getting hurt today.  
Nobody is going to die._

* * *

 **~Third Person~**

* * *

A man is standing at the hilt of the farmyard. He is deciding. The driver, who he still can't quite see through the blood in the windscreen but knows is a young boy from his cursing before, is not moving, and as much as this man has killed before, he only has one more victim left in his life's itinerary.

He is already dying, after all.

He at least hopes that the boy in the car is, too.

So, lethargically, he looks to the busy herd of dead shambling towards him, then turns away, and keeps walking...

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

 _Faintly, I'll go  
To take this head on_

 _Soon I'll come around  
Lost and never found  
Waiting for my words  
Seen but never heard  
Buried underground  
But I'll keep coming_

 _Wipe those tears off  
And make your heart proud_

 _I'll keep coming..._

When I come to, the sun has moved west across the sky.

A fairy is whistling in my ear, only, it's just my ears ringing, and my head is rested on the stomach of a grizzly bear, only it's the glove box in the middle of the car. The rest of my body is bent and stiff and distorted in an awkward angle and when I realise I'm not being held against my will like this by a demonic monster, I twist my waste so that it doesn't feel like I might snap in two. Something small moves in my vision and I cross my eyes to focus on two cockroaches copulating right in front of my nose. Unlike most things I've been seeing in the last few seconds, these are real, so I grimace and flick them away with my finger, then sit up with my head bowed and cupped in my hand.

" _Ugh_..."

The ringing noise in my ears doesn't stop, but it at least starts to waver when reality starts to come back to me. There is ticking, also. It makes me close my eyes and wince and press my forehead to the cool glass of the window. As the ringing dulls, I realise the ticking noise is coming from the car, the _Check Engine_ light flashing madly from the dashboard when I manage to quickly flitter my eyes open for a second, but there is another noise, too, attacking my ears loudly after a few more seconds. When I manage to open my eyes again, for longer this time, I realise that the louder noise has turned out to be whole lot of louder noises, and that they are growling, and that, through the window, several walkers snarl and bite at my face.

" _Ehh_!" Even though a layer of glass is between us, I startle and grunt and jerk away from them. But I hit something hard, yelp, " _Mother dick!_ " clutching my forehead and hissing through my teeth. "What the?"

Blinking a few times, I realise what happened, and it makes my stomach drop. In my collusion, one of the spikes that had been stuck through the hood is now lodged inside of the vehicle, torn through the airbag and firmly planted into the drivers' head-rest. That's what I just smacked my face on. How it missed me when it came through, I will never know, but the thought of what would have happened if it hadn't missed makes me shudder.

 _Shit...  
 **Close call.**_

I nod.

When I remember the man who made me crash in the first place, my eyes snap up at where he was. I don't see him through the cluster of angry dead outside so I look around the rest of the farm, which I now realise I am inside of; my car now set into the side of the barn like it's a part of it.

I groan again. My arm hurts. Something on my hip and neck, too. When I check in the mirror, I see a whole bunch of whip-lash, and when I check the rest of my body I'm relieved by the way I'm still in one piece, bar the right hand. My backpack is still here, too, though, in the crash it'd been thrown to the floor on the passenger side.

I reach over and grab it.

Something growls and my beanie is yanked off.

"Shit."

Immediately, I pull myself back with my backpack hugged in my arms and my back pressed against the driver-side window. I've hit my head on the spike-pole again and spend a second gasping in pain. It's a walker, reaching in through the broken window while jagged edges slice its chest apart. But I'm not looking at that. I'm watching it tear my beanie in two, then three, then five.

" _No_!"

Dissatisfied, it reaches out to me instead, smacking at the spike pole between us with greedy rotten hands. It's the only one that was smart enough to try climbing in that side, it seems, because all the rest are still behind me; not for long if I stay here. The glass rattles and creaks. I blink very, very expired Starbucks out of my eyes and swipe a hand down my face, grimacing in disgust and resisting the urge to yack, and then, quickly, I stab the corpse through the eyeball with my hunting knife.

I don't bother trying to retrieve my hat, and I'm so disorientated when I clamber over its shoulders through the window that I lose my balance and land in a heap on the ground with a grunt and a large dust cloud.

"Ouch."

There is a small moment that I use to catch my breath, clutching my knife to my chest and realising I've left my backpack in the car. I stare up at the clouds in the sky and almost laugh at myself, because this is a mess. A huge, ridiculous, horrifying mess. Because I don't have any control over today or what is happening or what is going on — _poor Tyreese would turn in his grave_ — and it's amazing to me, somehow. God, I am laughing. I'm belly laughing. Laughing so hard I think I'll disappear in laughter. Only then a rotten corpse invades my grey sky to startle me, and then another, and another, and I push myself back, staggering away from them and gathering myself to two feet. There isn't much distance between us so I push away from the wall of the barn and regroup us. Six of them, I count. I take a deep determined breath, clapping my hand and amp together with a _konk_ from the handle of my knife.

"Alright, fuckers," I bully, "who's first?"

It's a big man with missing teeth and an eyeball hanging out. I sink my knife through his temple and jump back as he falls flat on his face. Something inside of him pops loudly, and the stench is vile enough I plug my nose.

"Alright. Next, please?"

A child with big black eyes and pigtails. She's missing an ear, part of her scalp, and a whole meaty section on the back of her leg. I pull her around and cut her brainstem in two. A walker tries to grab for me but I step back and it misses.

"That all you got!?" I shout at them, backing up a little more. "Get your asses moving, I haven't got all day!"

As requested, two of them take a lunge at me in unison. I dodge one and throw myself into the second's chest, knocking him far enough away from the others to put my hand under his knee and pull, like a dance move. Who knew you could dance with walkers? He loses the rest of his footing when I grab his middle and yank, and then, mid-fall, I drive my knife into his forehead and let him fall away from me.

Only, I mess up.

Miss a step.

It's just, the thing with using a hunting knife instead of Lizzie's knife is that a hunting knife is a lot bigger, longer too, so you have to work harder to get it out and you have to do it at the same angle it went in, or it gets stuck. I had forgotten this. Just for a second. But that's all it takes. Because then I am struggling and falling and landing on top of him. I try in earnest to tear the knife out, but I'm running out of time and I don't want them too close with my back turned, and in one flash, I draw my Glock and swing around to face my monsters...

 ** _BLAM!_**

Her skull shatters off in chunks behind her and the goblin in my chest screams in ecstasy. Or maybe that was me. The next walker lunges, but when a bullet travels up through its chin it falls short of my feet by meters. One left.

"Alright, bitch," I tell it, aiming right between its eyes. "I want you up close this time."

She staggers forward, and I hold the trigger, wait, and when her mouth is wide and snarling and almost swallowing the barrel of my gun whole, I pull the trigger...

with

a

hollow

 _click._

"Oh, shi—"

My shoulders are grabbed and I'm trampled to the dirt. I grunt, and the walker screeches, and the fact that I could very seriously die right now doesn't concern me nearly as much as I'd expected it to. I'm anticipating the fear, until I realise I'm only anticipating the anticipation of the fear. So, for a moment or two, I stare at her and hold her at arms-length and look into her teeth and eyes, examining them. She looks sad. Some people do, even if they're feeling dead.

 _Even if they're okay._

Enid sometimes looks sad. Carol can, too, but the distant kind of sad. Carl can look that strange tired-angry-sad. But, to some extent, I guess we're all a little bit sad; the distant and tired and angry kind, right?

The walker snaps so close to my nose that I flinch. The smell is overbearing, of all things, so I decide I've had enough of staring and almost dying and having to smell the kind of death that shouldn't exist while all of this happens, so, with a violent shove, I roll us over with a knee on either side of her ribcage and an arm across her throat. Her head is squashed back with a squelch and a strangled growl, and her jaw struggles violently above my forearm. Her hands are in my hair, yanking me, and I can feel her nails peeling off before they can even scratch me. I reach for something to kill her with. No rock or stick or anything. Not until I glance at her blouse and spot a small pen tucked inside her breast pocket. I grab it quickly, and with a wet _crunch!_ and _pop!_ her eyeball is gone and she is still.

I unwind her fingers from my hair and sit back, checking myself for scratches. None. Despite the hard and unimpressed frown on my face, when I get a whiff of the expired Starbucks mixed with the stench of death and rot everywhere else, my stomach flips.

"Oh geez."

I yack into the dirt.

" _Bruurgkk—huurk_!"

It hurts my stomach and stings my throat but at least it doesn't last for long.

" _Ugh,_ " I groan, panting and wiping my mouth. "Oh, dammit."

I got some in her hair.

"Sorry, lady."

When I sit up again, I climb off the body and survey my surroundings, using my inhaler to catch my breath. The farm is empty now, and whoever I saw before is either lurking around or long gone. It must have been a while ago, because for one, it wasn't this far into sunset last I remember, and two, the cluster had to amble all the way across from the other field to me in that time, and if he did say hello to me he didn't seem to take anything from my backpack or murder me or worse, which he could have easily done in the time I was passed out, so I begin to realise that he was just another walker. Probably the first one that spooked me in the car, now that I think about it.

I go about reclaiming my knife; clean it off, sheath it, and holster my empty Glock, too, cursing myself because I left the armoury before I found anymore ammo before. I climb back inside the car and try the engine. The check engine light flashes angrily at me, but I ignore it, and the car churns violently, and then the whole thing shakes and grinds around me so I release the key and let out a hard sigh.

Frustrated, I fling the keys out the window. They hit the barn with a _clank!_ and land with a soft _thud_ in the dirt. I groan, then curse, then curse again, louder, banging my forehead against the deflated airbag and steering wheel with a series of heavy _thonk thonk thonk thonk_ 's.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!"

I sit up, rubbing the red mark between my eyebrows, then look over at the walker still leant inside the window and reach over to lift its chin. Its neck makes a crunching noise that I am far too accustomed to. What I am not accustomed to, however, is the way that my shredded beanie hat sits in miserable soggy clumps between its teeth, dripping some sort of black goo that makes my already empty stomach twist. Another sigh, and when my eyes water I frown angrily at the corpse.

"You know, I really liked that stupid hat," I scold it, dropping its face so that it smacks against the inside of the car door. A few teeth fall out. I kick the dashboard and sulk furiously for a second, sniffing and wiping my eyes with my sleeves. " _Fucking_ asshole."

I'm crying, but I tell myself that it's because of my hat and not because I'm terrified or completely out of my depth. I stop after a few minutes though. My backpack is left in a heap under its arms where I must have dropped it while climbing out, so I check that nothing is missing (nothing is) and sling it over my shoulder. Patrick's glasses are still intact, so, for comfort rather than anything, I put them on. It makes me feel better; seeing the world a little clearer and clutching Nonno's deer carving in my fist, which unfortunately lost a front-leg at some point in the crash. My hands are shaking, which I ignore as best I can. I take a few gulps of water to get rid of the nervous dryness in my mouth and throat, and then take deep breaths.

"Calm down, man," I whisper. "You got this, Oliver."

"Yeah. I do."

Since I have no bullets left, just a hunting knife, I wedge Lizzie's knife into my boot for backup, and when I step out of the car I take one final look at the carnage I've caused here...

"I win," I croak.

...and I get an idea. It's nostalgic and dumb and unnecessary, but I want to do it anyway. So, with the permanent marker at the bottom of my backpack, I write in neat handwriting into the side of the rusty metal car door, the words:

 _'Got my hat.  
Didn't get me.'_

I stand back from it and scowl smugly, and when the sadder kind of nostalgia tries to come along and spoil the fun, I nod my head and turn away, removing Patrick's glasses and stowing them, Nonno's deer carving, and the marker in my backpack again.

The pasture and barn are empty bar all the dead bodies taken out here throughout the day. Over by the gate, the Hilltop spear is still sticking out of one walkers' skull where the armoured man had left it. I decide to take it. I don't imagine I'll be very skilled with it, what with my disablement, but I realise I need all the help I can get this evening. So, with an empty gun in my holster, a knife in my boot, another on my belt, and a spear in my hand, I figure I have about as much help as I can ask for right now.

"Alright," I tell myself, "what now, Oliver?"

"Find Carol."

"How do I do that?"

"Follow Morgan."

"Which way did he go?"

 ** _That is, if he's even still alive._**

My stomach dips at the realisation of how quickly so much can change in just a few hours. In a few hours, I got a haircut. In a few hours, I got locked inside a utility room. I stole from my home. I crashed a car and lost my beanie. God dammit, in just a few hours, Maggie's baby might have turned inside of her. Everybody on that RV could be at Hilltop, doing all they can to save her, or they could be in _any_ kind of danger, right now...

Morgan could be anywhere.

And Carol could be dead.

Carefully, and with the spear in hand, I ignore how overwhelming this all feels and take myself over to the last place I saw the man, patting the souls of my shoes down on the spot he told me to stay out of trouble — _oops._ Morgan doesn't leave a lot of tracks to begin with, but the ones I know are his, I study very hard so that I can recognise them anywhere else, and as far as I can see, the only thing he would have had to go on was the direction the armoured man went. If he was a Savior, what with the spear from Hilltop, then there is an equal chance that he could have found her by now, too, what with her already running into them today.

"Alright, alright," I reassure myself, taking deep breaths. "I've got this. I've got this. If I was a possum, where would I play dead? No, no, she isn't playing anymore... Alright, alright, alright— _shit, shit, shit, shit,_ fucking fuck. No, focus. I've got this. If I was a _Morgan,_ where would I go? Find Morgan. Find Carol."

Under a row of trees, I find a fence left ajar and a few different tracks in a mud-patch. Three different footprints, as far as I can tell, but I'm no expert. One set matches Morgan's though, and neglecting attention to the other prints because they make me nervous, I go through and follow the dirt-track out onto a road where the dirt gets drier on higher and more sun-exposed areas, causing the prints to fade. The road goes somewhere north-east that I don't know, but I intend to find out, figuring he might have gone this way. But then I spot tracks leading straight east across into an open pasture. Except they aren't footprints. Hoof-prints. A horse. Recent, too, because the upturned earth is still dark and damp under the drier top-layer. As far as I can see, no human prints accompany it.

"Maybe it's that guy's horse…"

 _Maybe if I find his horse I can use it as leverage.  
 **What, and you think the Saviors'll just trade a lame zebra for Carol?  
** We don't even know for sure that he was a Savior, yet. And take that back!  
 **You're getting distracted.  
** Am not. It's a new plan. A back-up. **  
Whatever.  
** I know what I'm doing.  
 **You should be dead about as much as Carol should be happy.**_

It's pathetic how easily I can hurt my own feelings. Once I swallow away the lump in my throat, I shrug myself off and head into the pasture. If this comes to nothing I can just go back and follow the road north-east. Though, it turns out that the hoof-prints are far easier to follow, and they lead me through a small grove to a sign that says:

 _YOU  
ARE  
ALIVE_

I frown gratefully at it, giving it a serious nod and a gentle bump with my fist while I pass. The horse must have spent a bit of time in this field, because for a while I confuse myself with hoof-prints that don't go in any one direction. The term _'running around like a headless horse'_ comes to mind, but then again, I think the noun is _'chicken'_ not _'horse'_ and I think I'm only thinking of headless horses because I watched one get its brains blown out just yesterday.

 ** _Mental trauma is weird._**

Anyway, finally, when I'm a second away from giving up and going back to follow the road, I find one specific set of hoof-prints that do go in one direction, and what accompanies them, this time, is a pair of familiar human tracks. I grin, tilting my head back to the sky to whisper at the clouds...

"You _are_ alive."

* * *

Morgan and the horse's tracks lead me to a small town I don't know the name of. I've lost his footprints on the asphalt road but the horse's hoof-prints are heavy enough that I can see torn hoof-shapes in the dead leaves on the ground and the small metallic scuffs from its horseshoes. _Who the hell has time or resources to make horseshoes anymore?_ Anyway, they lead to a building. It is big and red and has three floors and a tall metal fence. It's a library. Walker bodies lay outside, still and quiet and ended in a big lined-up pile.

There is a noise. It sounds strange, like an odd soft grinding.

I follow it.

 _Wait!_ a small voice in my head squeaks. _Don't do that! We aren't supposed to follow the strange noise._

"Yes we are," I whisper back. "We always do."

 _Oh. Geez, I hate that about us. Why do we always do that? Why don't we ever just stay in the house?_

"If we stayed in the house then— _ouch_!" I'm climbing over a gate with sharp edges. "Then nothing would ever be anywhere near as exciting."

Around the corner of the big red building, I spot a horse hitched outside. I push away the small part of me that is a little disappointed it isn't actually a zebra and instead become acutely aware that I could be being watched right now, too. Another Merope could clamber out from behind a bush and finally put a bullet through my brain. Hell, this whole building could be neck-deep in Savior scum. But I'm also really really banking on Morgan being who brought the horse here because I can see a pair of his gloves left neatly to the side on the steps.

So, quietly, I stand before the animal without batting an eyelid, the blunt end of my spear thudding beside my boot while I prop it against the wall. The horse lets me pet her nose and rub small circles into the big space between her eyes. I press my forehead there, letting her calmness seep the spirit back into me, shutting my eyes and breathing in the smell of her; which is probably strange and a little bit insane, but, I mean, I'm probably mad already, aren't I? Her fur coat is ashen red, light enough she's almost white in most places really, and her legs and mane and tail are long and slim and pale.

I decide her name is Roan.

I also decide to give her half of my trail mix.

 _I really am mad,_ is my final decision, and it makes me laugh.

She laps at the fruit and pecans in my palm and I grin and tell her she's a "Good girl." She is saddled, which is a realisation I come to painfully slowly, or rather, the realisation that someone would have saddled her recently is, and when I start to come to my senses, I become aware of how ridiculously vulnerable I am and how much of a miracle it is that I'm not dead already.

Morgan, here or not, is no excuse to let my guard down.

Spear in hand again, I back up away from the building. My right elbow stings. I'd hardly thought about it when I gave myself the small cut with one of the spikes on the gate, but now I realise it could easily result in me getting an infection, but I decide it's pointless to worry too much about it right now so I just spit on the end of my amp-bandage and use it to rub the blood away from my opposite elbow as I carefully step around the building, listening for any movement or life.

Something rattles.

It doesn't sound alive.

Immediately, I reach for my gun, and then I remember that, for one, my hand is full with a spear, and two, my Glock is empty, and then I have to make a decision if it's a better idea to hold an empty gun as bluff or to take out my knife as _real_ defence or to just keep hold of my spear, a weapon I haven't the skill to use – since more than one option is impossible with only one hand. But I spend too long deciding so I just stick with the spear and hope for the best. Thankfully, the best is what I receive, because when I step around the corner, I realise I don't need any defence at all.

 _Son of a bitch...  
It's him._

I fasten my eye upon the tall dark-skinned man and watch him wonder purposefully across the recess yard, see his gaze train up at the hung corpse above, see his careful hands grip and pull, climb the thin tower of scaffolding, perch at its top a moment, and then... he kills it _,_ and with one clean slice through the rope tied around its throat the corpse falls thirty feet towards the driveway, making a wet _splat!_ as it hits the asphalt.

I blink, and Morgan Jones climbs back down from the scaffolding. Even when the man is stood right in front of me, I stare at the corpse's oozing body, thinking that I am tired and cold and alone and existing, _alive,_ somehow...

"Oliver."

"Hello," I say, waving to him without looking.

"Hi…" Morgan lets out a tight breath, and in the corner of my eye I see how hard his jaw is clenched. "Boy, you got a _whole_ lot of explaining to do," he tells me, and I nod at the corpse, then jerk my thumb in the direction behind me.

"That your horse?"

"That your spear?"

"No. Found it."

"Me, too."

 _Great,_ I think, _he's angry at me..._

"She's nice," I say in a lame attempt to soften him. I've never seen Morgan get angry but I've definitely heard about the times he has. Like when he threw Carol to the floor or when he stabbed Rick in the shoulder. But then again, he wasn't actually angry on any of those occasions... Even now, he doesn't look angry.

He sighs and says, "She is a he, actually."

I look up at him, chewing on the inside of my lip. My eyebrows twitch up, hopeful, because he really isn't angry.

"Guess I don't need to introduce you two?" he asks.

"I gave her—uh, I mean, _him_ some of my trail mix."

Morgan stares at me in something like disbelief and understanding all at once. Looking at him makes me feel a little like I felt petting Roan, almost; just calm and far away but present at the same time. He shakes his head incredulously and rubs his mouth, and I give him a wan smile.

"It's good to see you, sir."

"You, too," he relents. I squint at him.

"Did, uh – so, did you find her yet?"

He just smirks and makes a head start towards the front of the building. I don't take this as any particularly promising response, so I follow quietly. When I stop to pet the horse again, though, Morgan makes a _"Psst!_ " noise at me and hurries me along, and a sudden prickle of excitement perks up my senses.

We go inside.

The library is messy and lived in, recently, too. Damp clothes are still hung up and drying, and breakfast bowls are left unfinished; the powdered milk and cereal are still fresh and runny when I nudge one with my foot. It smells musky and stuffy, a little, like a lived-in place like this would, but it smells metallic, too; like blood. As far as I can tell it's coming from the bodies outside.

I ask Morgan if he knows for sure that nobody was here when he arrived, and he tells me, "Oh yeah," and he's still grinning. I'm confused. I think of the dead bodies outside and how they must have gotten there. Neither of us need to mention how recent their deaths were by how red and fresh their blood and bodies still are, the way their rigor mortis still hasn't worn off yet. Since, post-turn, it wasn't hard to realise that rigor mortis only takes place if the body doesn't become a walker, what with how they get up and keep moving, so I know that everyone outside was killed alive. Sometimes you can just tell, too. Like how you can tell some people are sad. Sometimes the dead's faces are still scrunched up in horror even _after_ the bullet has blown out the side of their skulls...

A part of me even knows that the woman's walker we followed earlier today must have been a part of what happened outside, too, maybe someone who tried to escape, but again, Morgan and I don't need to talk about it, and anyway, he seems in far too good a mood to spoil it with murder talk.

"Through here, boy."

There are big signs over doors that read _'Fiction'_ and ' _Horror'_ and ' _Fantasy'_ and _'Romance'_ and more further in and on the second floor. I itch to look through every shelf, but I itch even worse to see Carol again.

Morgan turns into a room that says _'Mystery'_ overhead, and I don't realise what's wrong until I look at him. His face has fallen, so I glance into the room again, stepping inside. What I thought originally was just some neglected cushions and blankets, I now understand was once an occupied bed. One that he'd previously left with an injured woman inside but is now very terribly empty.

He marches into the _Fiction_ section, calling out to her. "Carol? Carol!" But she isn't here, we both know it, and my heart is sinking. He rushes outside and I follow down the stone steps slowly, pulling my backpack up and hunching my shoulders. Skin rubs and my knuckle goes white around the spear handle.

"She's gone," I tell him... "again."

Morgan stands at the gate. He's pulled off the locks (which I, now, only just realise were already broken) and lets it swing wide open. He looks around some, but still, I don't pick up my pace. In fact, I stop altogether, and I'm so spent that I plop myself down on a dead man's back and let the spear clatter to the bloody stone slabs in front of me.

 _Shit,_ I think. _I can't save her. I don't know how to anymore._

Then Morgan is here, putting a hand on my arm to pull me up, but I resist, so then he's knelt, putting both hands on my face under my jaw and pulling gently for me to look at him. He's looking at me dead in the eyes, and it reminds me of Rick. My dad used to do this, too, but I always had to look up at him, and he would look down on me, and it would scare me sometimes if he was angry or if I had disappointed him because I hadn't stood up to the bullies or made it off the bench for the whole soccer game. But Rick and Morgan have this _way_ about them. A way where —I don't know— they do this, look at you, and you don't have to look up at them. You just look at them, _see_ them, and they see you, too.

Morgan's eyebrows are up very high; they make his forehead wrinkle. All I want to do is crawl into him and hide inside his coat pocket and cry until I'm a puddle at his feet. He gives me a squeeze and smiles a flat line across his mouth.

"You know how to ride a horse?" he asks me, and even though my head shakes miserably, Morgan nods enough times to make up for it, taking a deep determined breath. "Just sit behind me, hold on, and the rest you'll pick up along the way. Got that?"

"...Yes, sir."

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

The RV is gargling.

"What's that sound?" Sasha urges.

"Undercarriage coulda caught a bullet," Eugene answers. "Or could be a transmission. It could be nothing."

Dad looks up from his hands, catching his breath. "They were firing at our feet," he says, boasting... but he falters when he realises that isn't a good thing at all. "The blocked the road but they weren't trying to stop us. They _want_ us in this direction."

 _Terminus,_ I think. I think about Terminus a lot sometimes. It started as a dream, thinking up severed legs and people living as cannibals, cooking and serving people like pork, but they became more real when I remembered Bob, and the scrawny man with the dark empty eyes and the fake charismatic smile – who ate him. I remember the inside of a train freight and the sting of tear gas in my eyes and throat. _No sanctuary,_ I think. _Not there._

 _Not here, either._

"Barton Road takes us north," Sasha suggests, "but they gotta know we wanna go north."

"Meadows," Eugene answers. "Could take us east a piece, but we can get back on track on Mayhew."

"We're down to a third of a tank – we could top off at the next stop. But no refills after that."

"Alright," Dad agrees.

"She's burning up," Aaron warns him.

The RV squeals and rattles loudly and Dad pinches the bridge of his nose desperately...

" _Rick._ "

My heart doesn't just barrel this time. It drops. Staggers. Taking all and the rest of me along with it. I grit my teeth angrily. It's more of them. A whole lot more. More Saviors than I can count.

"Go back," Dad growls shakily.

"Where?"

"Just _go back_."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

I don't think I like horseback riding. Or at least, I don't like it when I'm sat on the back of a saddle and it is constantly bashing into my junk every stride we make along this street. It was worse when it started. We were going a lot faster. It got so bad that even though I forced myself not to complain aloud, Morgan (who is also carrying the spear for me) could tell I was in agony so he apologised and slowed Roan down.

"You don't have to go so slow," I grunt out for what must be the tenth time so far. We're trotting, that _one-two-one-two-one-two_ stride that's faster than a walk but slower than a lope. "I – _ow—_ I swear."

Morgan almost grins, but this isn't much time for finding things funny.

"We gotta find her," I insist. "Better we do it fast, right?"

"We'll find her," he says calmly, moving to Roan's stride smoothly in the saddle. I frown enviously, wobbling and jiggling and wincing along behind him. It can't be comfortable for poor Roan, either. "We're making good time."

"Okay," I relent.

Morgan even sees it fit to start a conversation, even though I haven't an awful lot to contribute since holding up conversation when you're practically getting butchered in the balls proves to be pretty difficult. But then again, I think he's trying to take my mind off of it. He tells me that Carol is a good woman and that he sees a lot of himself in her which is why he thinks he can help her, and that he sees a lot of me in her, too, and her in me, which is why he thinks he and I are going to be good friends, and I want to tell him to shut up because it still bugs me when he talks like he knows us, but it bugs me even more when I know that he's right about it all. I decide to keep my mouth shut. It's all far too complicated and confusing to talk or think about when I'm currently busy slowly going infertile.

"She told me today, before she left: If you care about anyone, there is a price," he tells me, "and you have to pay for it."

I frown, blinking away the sudden ache behind my eyes. We ride through town for a few minutes longer, until I finally find the motivation to speak. Or rather, grunt breathlessly, daring to point across the street for a second until I almost lose balance and have to grab onto the back of the saddle again. I find that sitting like this, with my hand between the leather and my crotch, is slightly less agonising. I'm still sweating.

"Woah," Morgan coos once he's led Roan over, and she obediently slows to a steady halt. I still scrunch up my face and almost double over at the soreness. Morgan and I look down at the walker. It's dead, but I can't quite tell how recently it was taken out because the body is old and dry. Beside it, something glints when the sun reflects off it. Rosaries. They're bloody... It's not the walker's.

Suddenly, I almost fall backwards because Morgan kicks the horse into a trot.

"Sorry," he hisses over his shoulder when I groan, "I think we gotta hurry."

"They're hers," I wince, tucking my chin against his shoulder because _Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!_ "The rosaries."

"She didn't have them before."

"How do you know that?" I ask, going numb, which _can't_ be good. "Maybe… Maybe she had them in her pocket."

"I don't know," Morgan says anxiously, "but I got a bad feeling. She wasn't bleeding like that when she left. I don't think we're the only ones lookin' for her."

I fall quiet, rolling through a lot of unpleasant ideas that Morgan may or may not be thinking of and deciding I don't mind the pain in my privates so much, as long as it means it'll save anybody's life today; preferably Carol's. We ride across town all the way to its outskirts, taking routes that we can only guess and go off small clues from in the hope we're following the right path to her.

It's a gunshot that turns the world up-side down.

No, really...  
...I am up-side down.

"SHIT!"

Falling.

Roan had spooked, and I am sent flailing backwards. I land hard on my shoulders and I only just manage to roll out of the way before a hoof would have come down on my face.

"Woah!" Morgan shouts, pulling on reins. "Woah, there!"

Roan calms down, snorting and prancing dangerously, but with a few soft coos from Morgan, the horse is settled enough to only a few frantic head rocks, breathing heavily through his big pale nostrils. Morgan is about to suggest I get back on, holding an arm out to me despite me being in no nerve to remount, but before he can say a word—

 ** _BLAM!_**

This time Roan doesn't spook as bad, but he still spins on the freaking spot, and I leap back and shout, "Morgan, go!" at him, "It's gotta be her! She's in trouble."

He steadies the animal, glaring down at me.

"It didn't sound far," I urge, wheezing so hard my eyeballs are threatening to pop out of their sockets. "I'll catch up. Swear."

He tells me to take my spear and I do, and then he's turning and galloping in the direction the shots came from, and I can hardly keep standing until I've emptied my inhaler into my throat. It dawns on me then. I didn't bring a spare.

Two walkers are closing in, so, leaving my things on the ground and using my hunting knife, quickly (and breathlessly) I dodge under one's arms and cut its head off. The second must think my backpack is small and easy prey because it crouches down and sinks its teeth into it, but then I am there, jumping it from behind and lugging it onto its back and bringing my heel down through its nose. Its head explodes like a rotten watermelon. I don't like the shiver of excitement that runs down my spine when I spend a second too long looking at the blood soak into my shoelaces.

The gremlin in me giggles, and it says, _moremoremoremore..._ but I push it off a spleen-cliff, collect up my backpack and spear, and run.

Roan is who I see first. I almost run right past the back alley he is quietly stood at the end of, with a deserted farm yard just beyond him. "Please," I barely hear from Morgan, who I can only just see the back of when I get a little further along the beaten down track, running but also burning all over now, searing exhaustion through every limb and powered only on adrenaline and fear and Ventolin—which I didn't have enough of. I'm wheezing so much I only just hear the low growl of a " _No,_ " in reply from somebody I don't recognise, before Morgan pulls the trigger.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Four, five.

...Six.

Somebody collapses. I hear it.

Morgan's arm is shuddering violently. I, too, am completely frozen to the spot for a second. Then he finally rushes forward, towards what, I haven't seen yet, and my curiosity pulls my exhausted body forward one foot at a time, almost on tiptoes. Until I see her...

"Carol!"

She is sprawled across the ground with two spilling bullet holes in her left arm and thigh, and another red splash across her stomach. Beside her lays a few dead walkers, and the fresh body of the man who I realise has done this to her. I recognise him. I saw him before, at the farm before I crashed. He is a Savior, I can tell; he has that familiar grunge-organised air about him, even in death. The bullet holes scattered across his body and face makes the goblin in my chest rattle against my ribcage like the bars of a prison cell, and then I am crashing to my knees beside her and Carol is writhing and crying and reaching out to me with whispered sobs and bloody hands that curl into my hair and sleeves.

I'm crying hysterically. She is, too. And then she says the worst thing she has ever said to me in my whole life...

"Please,  
baby,  
just  
let  
me  
 _go_."

...and I can't say anything to her at all.

"It's not your time," Morgan tells her, tells us both, knelt over her body while I scoop her up in my arms and try my hardest to stop time so it doesn't hurt her anymore. Her head heavies into my chest and my fingers tighten into her coat. The sleeve is blown out and burned. Morgan says, "You are gonna come back from this."

Carol's eyes meet mine, but she shuts her eyes and sobs a loud and painful breath that turns my blood to poison. Morgan glances at me, lost. He's holding the wound on her arm tightly and blood swells between his fingers. He licks his lips quickly and starts to gather his thoughts again, only, the moment he does, my ears prickle at the sound of hoof-beats.

Not from Roan behind me.

In front.

Another horse; dark bay and saddled. Two men accompany it. One is sat in the saddle and has a long spear over his shoulder and the other is making his way towards us, an arm up in submission, unarmed. Regardless, Morgan whips around, empty gun clutched in his hand. Mine, empty too, is raised towards his face, tears streaming down my cheeks and Carol's body heaving in my lap.

"What happened here?" the man closest asks. He's got short groomed strawberry-blonde hair and a big bruise on his cheek. His skin is pale, and his eyes are stern and concerned. He's wearing armour –they both are– and I recognise him. Morgan, too...

The dark bay horse snorts softly and Roan answers it with a nicker.

"I found your horse," Morgan explains, his voice calm. "Found our friend, too. She needs help."

The man surveys us carefully, checking back with his friend, who looks fairly similar to him only he has dark brown hair and no bruises that I can tell of. His spear still concerns me though, since, yes, he could have just found it like I have mine, or he'd gotten it from the Hilltop, which means they could be Saviors.

 ** _Jesus said the Hilltop traded with more communities than just the Saviors though.  
_** _Either way, I'm not sure how they're going to feel about me and Morgan having their possessions…_

I swallow hard, try to breathe. _Can't, can't, can't, can't._ I'd forgotten what this feels like. Hyperventilating but not hyperventilating. Not enough air is coming through or leaving. I'm breathing through a pinched straw. _Fuck. Oh, fuck._

The man closests' eyes suddenly soften, and he steps forward, extends an arm...

"Then let's get you some help."

...and I collapse.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _I'll Keep Coming_ by Low Roar. Can't remember who recommended it to me, so please do remind me if it's you.

I think that this was the first chapter in a _while_ with a remotely positive ending. Let's just ignore the whole _Carol hurting like hell_ thing and _Oliver passing out from exhaustion_ though, yeah? xD sorry

I honestly didn't know if I could go through with killing the beanie hat. But I kind of felt like it was necessary. In the last few episodes everybody has been slowly but surely losing the things that they think won't ever get taken away from them. Like Rick with his belief that he and his family are practically indestructible, and Carol in her _I can be a den mother_ belief, etc. Oliver rejected Carl and left Enid in the closet and left Bean behind, and only really had his beanie to make him feel okay again, but he lost it, and even the little deer carving got broken (that was more a shitty amputation symbol though xD) and running out of Ventolin.

Also, _"I fasten my eye upon the tall dark-skinned man and watch him wonder purposefully across the recess yard, see his gaze train up at the hung corpse above, see his careful hands grip and pull, climb the thin tower of scaffolding, perch at its top a moment, and then..."_ was meant to be a nod from Oliver's subconscious to the part in Tom and Huck that Carol read in Story Time a million years ago: _"The children fastened their eye upon their bit of candle and watched it melt slowly and pitilessly away, saw the half inch of wick stand alone at last, saw the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin tower of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then..."_

Anyway, next chapter up in a few weeks I imagine. Season 7 currently rocks and the premier traumatised me. I hope you are all doing okay because I sure as fucking hell am not xD

Happy reading.


	30. Last Day on Earth, Part 4: Cat & Mouse

**IWalkOnMyOwn** Thank you. So so much. I think there needs to be an internet support group for Walking Dead victims xD

 **Yozza** Ah, thank you. Understood. I think if he'd seen Negan, (well, actually, I know becaus I wrote it happen first before I switched) it would have broken him. He would have gone mute and he would have gone catatonic for a few days and it just would have been very bad for him for a long time. With no Carol. And Carl trying to help but in tern making it worse. It just would have been bad. Hence why I've gone with this next route. I can't spoil much but this story arc for Oliver has been a lot more satisfying to write. With Carl aside he's going to have to deal with his complicated relationship with Carol, which has gotten... very complicated. And he's coping in new ways but yes, no spoil. I hope you enjoy it when it comes along.

 **RHatch89** Me, too! Thank you.

Replies to the rest of the reviews will be in the next chapter ^.^

* * *

 _To be honest, you don't even need to read the next two chapters if you saw the episodes. Nothing changes. It's just a more in-depth analysis of what happened through Carl's perspective, I guess, if you want to think of it any other way than just a 5,000-word carbon-literature copy of his parts of the episodes. Regardless, should you choose to read them, enjoy..._

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

We're driving again, the next route.

I'm beginning to realise what this is to the Saviors.

When I was ten, sat up-side down in my tire swing at home, I remember peering under my comic book and spotting our neighbour's cat play with a mouse it'd found on our driveway. The cat would scratch and mess with the little creature until it could hardly move anymore, and then it would stop, act like it wasn't interested, and the mouse would catch its breath for a moment until it would try to escape again, free, but only for a time. Because then the claw came back and lashed out again, and it would start over. The mouse would lose a little more blood and a little more energy and a little more hope, until it was finally so drained and finished and spent that the cat'd take one final lash and crush the poor creature's skull between its teeth. When I cried about it, my mom sat me down and told me about The Cat and Mouse Act. How the suffragettes in the nineteen-hundreds were arrested and taken to jail just because they wanted their right to vote. How, in jail, as protest to their cruel conditions, they would refuse to eat. Some were force-fed and beaten, every day losing a little more blood and a little more energy and a little more hope, until they were finally so drained and finished and starved that the police let them go home again, and these women would catch their breath, free, but only for a time. Because then the law came back and arrested them again, and it would start over.

"It was terrible for them," Mom told me while Dad bent over the trash can disposing of the poor mouse's corpse, "and it lasted for a long time, but in the end the brave suffragettes kept hold of their hope, held onto their strength, and they won."

Tonight, the Saviors think we are the mice.

But they're wrong.

They are.

Dad is talking to Maggie again and comes out when, once again, Abraham has to pull up the RV. Only this time there are no strange trucks or Saviors in sight, but a wall of lumber. A literal _wall._ Hacked and stacked tall and neat. We get out, guns drawn. We'd parked in an underpass, and above us the bridge casts a shadow across the road ahead. Tire tracks, too, seem to shadow our intended path, scattered in front of the wall of wood, but no matter where I look I can't see where these logs came from. Every tree around here seems intact.

"These tracks," Eugene rambles, "they would indicate they not only have people but some big-ass toys and capabilities."

Abraham cuts him off angrily: "What it indicates is we are neck-deep up shit creek with our mouths _wide_ open."

God, I hate it when it's only those two talking.

Anger and frustration keeps the hold on my gun secure and tight. Then somebody screams behind us and we swivel around and aim. What we see is horrifying. It's the man, from before; the captive with the orange _'X'_ on his front. A noose of chain is bound around his neck and he is dropped over the underpass. We hear the crack of his neck and watch the squirm of his body as he dangles over our heads, kicking and gargling desperately against the chain that is choking him.

"Don't," Abraham grumbles.

"I can try and break the chain," Aaron pleads, gun raised.

"It won't work."

"I can try!"

"It won't _work_!" Dad hisses.

Strangled chokes stick like glue in my ears and I resist the urge to hug myself. The urge is dulled when my anger takes over, and I hold onto that as tightly as I hold onto my Beretta.

"And we need the bullets."

So we watch him hang, and it takes... _so_ long, until, finally, he goes still; eyes bugged, mouth open, teeth missing, and neck bent at an odd angle. Fire crackles behind us. We turn, and then flames, out of nowhere, begin to eat up the pile of lumber across the road...

"You're treatin' your people good, right?" It's him again. The 61%. His voice is coming from the other side of the pile, maybe, but again, maybe not. None of us are certain enough to take aim. "Like it was your last day on Earth? Or maybe one of theirs?"

Dread makes me bite my lips and hold my breath, so I imagine Oliver's hand intertwined in mine and it makes me feel better.

"You better go!" 61% suggests. "It's gonna get hot. You go get where you're goin'!"

"Go," Dad is telling us, hands jabbing at my shoulder blades. "Go!"

We're running back to the RV.

"Get on!" Dad hisses when I take a second too long staring up at the hung man. "Abraham, get us out of here now." He does, and we make our next escape, our next jab at freedom, just like the mice we are becoming.

* * *

Maggie isn't feeling any better.

There are only two more routes north from where we are. The Saviors are probably waiting for us wherever we go. Ahead of us. Behind us. But Eugene said they might not be waiting on us, per se – "They're waitin' on this rust bucket. And they _don't_ know the moment-to-moment occupancy of said rust-bucket." Which, when translated, means: _We go on foot_. Or rather, the rest of us do while Eugene drives said rust bucket.

"The sun sets soon."

That was an hour ago.

Now?

Now the forest is black.

And I feel almost blind.

Half sighted.

But a new kind.

A worse kind.

Dad, Abraham and Sasha are carrying Maggie in her stretcher –which essentially is just the lower part of the bed-frame hacked to be of use. I am dispatching walkers as we go, listening for them and watching their outlines in the shallow glimmers from the moon. Eugene has taken the RV on one of the last routes and he's going to distract the Saviors for as long as he can by circling all the routes we've tried already. Eventually, he will get caught, and he will be taken captive.

We're lucky he's here.

Hopefully, they won't kill him.  
Hopefully, they need him for leverage.  
Hopefully, they need all of us for leverage.

I'm not sure I much like cats and mice a whole lot right now.

Maggie keeps asking for us to let her walk but there's no chance in hell. Her skin is turning grey and her breath is so shallow it almost disappears sometimes, and sweat is soaking into her clothes and hair. A walker wonders across our path, part of a large tree branch balanced right through its chest, and with one clean lash of Oliver's borrowed machete, the top half of its skull severs off and flies across the forest. Maggie asks again to be allowed to walk it. But Aaron refuses.

"Relax," he tells her softly, panting. We all are. "Just a few more miles."

Another walker. I shove it against a tree and drive the blade through its forehead.

"I heard what you told her," I talk to my father when I come back to him a second later, "when we were leaving. We can do anything, 'cause we'll do anything we need to do. We have and we will." I take a second to catch my breath. "What happened to Denise – I'm not gonna let anybody die like that again."

I'm thinking about The Cat and Mouse Act again.

"Son..." Dad, too, I'm starting to realise.

"What?"

A whistle.

Two notes.

One high...  
...One low.

More whistling, again and again and again and they're coming from everywhere. Shadows. Saviors. I see them through the trees and my heart falls out of my throat.

"Go!" Dad shouts. "GO!"

The whistling doesn't stop even as we speed through the forest. They're whistling together. One, long, eerie, two-note pitch that creeps across every pore in my skin. It itches. It burns. It's _building._ Just run, I think frantically. Just run, just run, just run.

 _K_

Light.

It's so bright it startles me.

"Agh!"

I shield my eyes and almost double over. Dad staggers past me, struggling not to drop Maggie's stretcher. The whistling becomes so loud I wince, and when my eyes adjust I see what is surrounding us. People. All shapes and sizes and genders and colours, ranging from 1% Negans to 99%'s. They corral us in a large dirt clearing we've found ourselves in. Cars make up the border of one end and the Saviors make up the rest in a large rectangle shape around us, like a fence of people. One RV – _our RV_ – sits in the centre of the car wall like a judging booth for a stage we didn't sign up to perform on.

I'm gasping, swallowing, twisting around on weak feet, helpless. The whistling doesn't stop. It's _so_ loud. Their breath's misting up the spaces in front of their mouths like dragon breath. The night is cold but my whole body is on fire with adrenaline, sweating through my clothes. A man is knelt in the corner of the rectangle in front of the dazzling headlights. It's Eugene. His head is bowed and his fists are bawled into his lap, an eye swollen shut.

Oh, God.

Oh, God, no.

How do we get out of this?

How do we win?

The whistling dies down slowly and then suddenly, and silence hangs for only a second until footsteps crack it apart.

"Good!"

It's the 61%.

"You made it!" he praises, walking out in front of us. "Welcome to where you're goin'!"

His arms are up to the sides like he's basking. Basking in the fear.

"We'll take your weapons," he says, and his gun comes up to aim between my eyes. " _Now_."

When Dad speaks, his voice is so shaken he can hardly separate a full syllable. "Wecantalkaboutit–"

"We're done talkin'. Time to listen."

We're stripped clean. No, we're stripped _dirty._ Dirty of everything bar the clothes on our back. Dad is staring at me. He looks pale and gaunt and I wonder if he might pass out. I glare at him, and it either gives him enough encouragement to compose himself again or it shames him enough he has to stop looking at me altogether. The 61% picks up my gun and presents it to me.

"Yours, right?" he asks. Rested on his palm, the Beretta points at my face, but his finger isn't on the trigger so I don't give him the satisfaction of flinching. He leans close. My heartbeat roars inside my chest and my eye narrows at him, but I do not falter. "Yeah..."

Quickly, and intended to startle me, he flicks the brim of my hat, but again, I don't flinch; hardly even blink.

"...it's yours."

He turns to the rest of us.

"Okay! Let's get her down and get you all on your knees. Lots to cover!" A few men start towards Maggie; tall and muscular and expressions harder than steel.

"Hold up," Abraham grumbles quickly. "We _got_ it."

"Sure, sure."

Abraham, Dad, Aaron and Sasha help Maggie to her feet. She clutches to Abraham, even when they both kneel to the floor next to each other. Eugene's put to his knees beside me to my left. Blood runs streaks down his nose and eye.

"Gonna need you on your knees," the Savior commands calmly when the rest of us don't move another muscle. Dad gives me another look then, and I intend not to return it but then I am staring at him. They say the eyes are the window to the soul, and through his, I see nothing but horror.

Don't, I beg him silently, dread creeping up my spine like spiders. Dad, don't. But he does, obeying their orders, so the rest of us follow.

Abraham.  
Maggie.  
Dad.  
Sasha.  
Aaron.  
Me.  
Eugene.

In that order. Lined up like cattle to slaughter.

 _"You're either the butcher, or the cattle,"_ Oliver said to me once. I don't know why or when or where, but I know, somehow, that it wasn't from his mouth first. _"_ _You're either the butcher, or the cattle."_

I think of the coffee beans, the carrot or the egg, the salt or the sugar. And if you find yourself as none of the above, I realise, then there is nowhere you belong anymore.

"Let's get the other ones," 61% commands. "Right now. Dwight!"

"Yeah."

"Chop chop."

The so named, Dwight, steps out of the crowd, armed with Daryl's crossbow. I glare at him, my chest swelling in rage. He did it. He killed Denise, I know it. He's at the back of a truck to our left and swings the hatch open. It's them. Daryl, Michonne, Rosita and Glenn.

"You got people to meet!"

They're made to line up on their knees over by Abraham's side in the order of Glenn, Rosita, Daryl, Michonne and then the rest of us. They look like they've been through hell. Daryl, especially. He's been shot in his shoulder, I think, or maybe his collarbone, or arm. I can't tell because there's a blanket covering him and there are too many things attacking my brain right now. But I know that he's bleeding badly and blood covers both of his hands and arms. He's pale, too. Very pale.

"Maggie?" Glenn whimpers when he sees her. She's crying. The adrenaline rush is making sweat stick my hair and forehead together, but I remain solid, like a statue, forcing the hardness in my expression and the stillness in my body.

"On your knees!"

Glenn cries out when he's forced into line again.

"Alright!" 61% yells. "We got a full boat! Let's meet the man."

He steps over to the RV and knocks on the door, and then he's walking into the crowd. As he passes us, he tosses my gun to the floor before me. I look at it, thinking of all the stupid things I could do with it right now. I could take down at least four, but by default, it would kill myself and several more of us, if not all, in the process. I spend about two seconds thinking about this before I let the suicidal idea slip between my fingers.

I hear the footsteps from inside.

I almost _recognise_ them.

Because I know exactly who is stepping out of the RV.

The Bogeyman.

Here.

Right in front of us.

Full-blown.

100%.

Negan.

Tall, dark, _great,_ with black, crew-cut, slicked-back hair, groomed facial hair and light skin. The irony stabs me in the throat. He looks around Dad's age but he could be younger. Hell, he could be a lot older, too. He has deep laugh lines and a long strong nose. His grin is venomous and his laughter is soundless, but it vibrates through every one of us. He wears dark brown jeans, a pair of black leather work boots, a zipped-up black leather jacket and a tucked in red scarf around his neck, and on his shoulder, sits a large, wooden, baseball bat.

It is wrapped in barbed-wire.

I glance at my Beretta, recognising the carving on the handle now.

"We pissing our pants yet?" Negan's voice is low and rough and intimidating. The kind of voice that can change colour with every syllable if he wanted it to. The kind of voice powerful enough to break you. "Oh, _boy,_ do I have a feeling we're getting _close_."

My breath shakes. I see the fog cloud in front of my mouth. It shudders and fizzles away. He strides into the head-lighting, making a slow silhouetted walk along our curved line of knelt bodies, examining every one of us.

"Yep. It's gonna be fucking pee-pee pants city here, _real_ soon."

Negan grins and sweeps a finger across us all.

"Which one of you pricks is the leader?"

"It's this one, he's the guy," the 61% says, who I, now, realise is a very big _negative_ 100%. They're all negative 100% Negans now. Negan, leader of the Saviors, was never really a: _We are all Negan_ case. It is just him. Not 'Negan _is_ his Saviors'. But 'Negan _of_ his Saviors'.

Dad flinches.

Negan lets out a dramatic sigh and squares up to him.

Dad.

Dad our leader.

Dad the mouse.

 _No._

"Hi."

Ever so slightly, Dad is rocking side to side, rocking to his heartbeat like it's a motor working too hard, petrified. Sweat drips from his hair like he's just stepped out of a bathtub.

"You're Rick, right? I'm Negan. And I _do not_ appreciate you killing my men. And when I sent my people to kill your people for killing my people, you killed more of my people. Not cool. Not. Fucking. Cool."

Dad has to look away from him. Away and down at the mud under his knees.

"You got no _fucking_ idea how not cool that shit is. But I think you're gonna be up to speed shortly." He's frowning disapprovingly. Negan's frown is broad and playful and satanic. Chills me right to my bones. "You are _so_ gonna regret crossing me in a few minutes."

Then he's grinning.

His grin is more terrifying than his frown.

"Fuck, _yes,_ you are."

My knees are numb and my fists are rock. When I try to loosen them, my whole body tightens at me not to.

"You see, Rick, whatever you do. No matter fucking what. You don't mess with the new world order. And the new world order is this – and it is really very simple, so, even if you're fucking stupid, which you very well may be, you can understand it. You ready? Here goes. Pay attention."

The barbed wire bat leaves Negan's shoulder and hovers in front of Dad's face. He jerks his chin away. I don't know what I do but I know it takes everything for me stay absolutely still. All of a sudden, I want to throw up, but every organ in my body seizes on itself, pulling all of me into my centre like I'm in a shell.

Negan grins, gazing along his weapon like it's the body he goes to sleep with.

"Give me your shit, or I will kill you."

He leans up and does that laugh again where no noise comes out but we all feel it.

"Today was career day!" Negan exclaims. "We invested a lot so you would know who the fuck I am and what I can do. You work for me now. You have shit, you give it to me. That's your job. Now, I know that is a mighty fucking big nasty pill to swallow, but swallow it you most _certainly_ mother fucking will...

You ruled the roost.

You built something.

You thought you were safe. I get it.

But, the word is _out_.

You are _not_ safe.

Not even fucking close. In fact, you are fucked. Even more fucked if you don't fucking do what I want. And what I want is half your shit. And if that's too much, you can make, find, or steal more, and it'll even out sooner or later.

This is your way of life now.

The more you fight back, the harder it will be.

So if someone _knocks_ on your door, you fucking _let us in._ We _own_ that door. You try to stop us, and we will fucking _knock_ it the fuck down. You understand?"

Dad is horrified. I try to remember a time he was this afraid and how we got out of it. But I don't recall such an event. And whether that's because there never has been one or simply that I don't remember it, I don't know, but his fear now is worse than I've ever witnessed in one whole human being. It's the fear you feel when everything you thought you knew has turned itself over and inside out right in front of you. It's the fear you feel when there is no way out. The fear you feel when you think that today is somebody you love's last day on earth.

"What?" Negan asks, cupping a hand to his ear. "No answer?"

The baseball bat twitches by his leg.

"You don't really think that you were gonna get through this without being punished, now, did you?" Negan is asking. "I don't want to kill you people. Just want to make that clear from the get-go. I want you to work for me. You can't do that if you're fucking dead, now can you?"

He keeps waving it around.

 _God,_ he keeps waving it around!

"I'm not growing a garden. But, you killed my people – a whole Goddamn fuck-load of them. More than I'm comfortable with. And for _that –_ that, you gotta fucking pay. So, now, I'm gonna beat the holy fuck fucking fuckedy _fuck_ outta one of you."

The baseball bat swings to life again, swivelling around his hand like it's got its own mind.

"This... This is Lucille," Negan introduces like showing off a prized award, "and she is fucking _awesome_."

He swings it next to Sasha's face. She gasps silently. My heart stops, then pukes inside itself with another overdose of adrenaline that makes my body want to keel over, but I stay on my knees, hard as rock.

"All this, all this is just so we can pick out which one of you gets the honour." Negan inhales sharply and paces along all of us, walking with his hips first. He moves across Dad and Maggie to Abraham. He grows, the Sargent, facing him –the monster– head on. Fearless and terrified all at once. Negan grins, impressed. "Huh. _Hmpf,_ I gotta save this fucking shit."

Then he's coming over here, stopping in front of me. Lucille, the bat, thuds to the floor when Negan crouches down in front of me, our three eyes level. I glare. Negan grins, and his eyebrows jump excitedly.

"You got one of our guns," he tells me. "Whoa. Yeah. _You_ got a lot of our guns."

My chest falls and rises steadily.

My eye narrows.

My jaw clenches.

"Fuck, kid, lighten up," Negan criticises. "At least cry a little." I don't. He chuckles, then gets up, walks away, and stops in front of Maggie. "Jesus! You. Look. _Shitty._ I should just put you out of your misery right now."

The bat comes up.

"NO!" Glenn lunges, hitting the mud. "NO!"

Dwight kicks him in the face and pins him to the ground under Daryl's crossbow.

"STOP IT!" Maggie begs.

"Nope, get him back in line," Negan chirps happily over Glenn's howls, letting Lucille lower beside his calf like a disappointed fight dog.

"No!" Glenn pleads, sobbing and screaming while he's dragged by his collar. "No! NO. _Don't!_ Don't."

Negan laughs.

"Alright, listen," he tells us. "Don't any of you fuckers do that again. I will shut that shit down, no exceptions. First one's free. It's an _emotional_ moment – I get it."

Negan looks at Dad.

"Sucks, don't it?" Negan asks him sympathetically. "The moment you realise you don't know _shit._ "

Negan's bat points at me.

"This is your kid, right?"

Dad's eyes are wet and wild and Negan laughs, coming over again. I watch him look between us, Dad and I, assessing closely and comparing our characteristics to each other's. Until finally Negan throws his head back and lets out a low-pitched laugh. I imagine setting him on fire to kill him, like a demagorgon monster I read about in a Dungeons and Dragons book once. But then the thought of Negan surviving the flames and coming back for us scares me enough that I almost believe it could happen. Almost. Until I realise he is just a man. A man just as mortal as the rest of us. A man who doesn't know who he is messing with and is going to die for it very soon, just like the rest.

"Ho," Negan concludes confidently. "This is _definitely_ your kid!"

"Just _stop_ this!" Dad roars.

"HEY!" Negan is louder, storming over to him with an evil grin. "Do not make me kill the little future fucking serial killer."

This hurts in a way that makes me want to die for a second.

"Don't make it _easy_ on me!" Negan plays. "I gotta pick somebody. _Eeeeee_ verybody's at the table waiting for me to order."

He starts whistling.

The two note one.

Pacing along us all.

Lucille drags behind him hungrily.

"I simply cannot fucking decide." He laughs and turns away. When he looks back, he turns to us all with a grand gesture of open arms... "I got an idea."

He pulls up Lucille.

"Eenie."  
Dad.

"Meenie."  
Maggie.

"Miney."  
Abraham.

"Mo."  
Michonne.

My brain becomes a bees' nest, working at the speed of light. I'm trying to figure this out ahead of him, see who it will land on. How this will help, I don't know, but I can't help it. It's–

"Catch."  
He skips Daryl and Rosita, jumping two left to Glenn. The bees nest in my brain cracks right open and honey and wax spills across the mud.

"A tiger."  
Backwards to Daryl.

"By."  
Rosita.

"His."  
Maggie again.

"Toe."  
Dad.

"If."  
Sasha.

"He hollers."  
Aaron.

"Let him go."  
Ahead to Eugene, spending another line with Lucille hovering in front of his nose.

"My Mother."  
He isn't sticking to a pattern. How do I control this? How do I fix this? How do I save us? I... I can't.

"Told me."  
Me and I'm shuddering.

"To pick."  
Eugene again.

"The very."  
Me again.

"Best."  
Aaron.

"One."  
Sasha.

Something awful tells me that Negan has already picked his meal tonight.

"And you."

...

"Are."

...

"It."

Oh, God...

Lucille twirls hungrily.

"Anybody moves, anybody says anything, cut the boy's other eye out and feed it to his father." Negan stretches his arms out in excitement, cracking his neck and shoulders quickly. "And _then_ we'll start!"

Oh, God.

"You can breathe. You can blink. You can cry," he is saying. "Hell, you're _all_ gonna be doing that."

Seconds turn to years turn to moments turn to millenniums back and forth and up and down and inside out over again until I'm watching the beads of sweat spraying out from our every jerking movement and every ripple in every tiny puddle under our knees and hearing every rub and scuff in our clothing and feeling every cell in our bodies die and regenerate and grow and doubledoubledouble.

Negan's arms come up with Lucille, and he is fast, and _so_ strong, and Lucille's first: THAKK! turns skull into cave; bees' nests into honey and wax and blood and brain matter.

There is screaming.

" _Ho_! Ho! Look at _that_! Taking it like a _champ_!"

More screaming.

Again: KRAKK!

It blurs...

WRAKK!

All of it...

SPUKK!

Every sight...

SP _LAU_ G _G_!

Every sound...

 _SQUELCH_!

Every smell...

 _SHR_ ACK!

Every feeling...

TH _RUNCH_ K!

 _..._ and then it is over.

* * *

 **Notes**

The beginning of this chapter was literally the first time I have ever substantially recalled anything I learned in History class and used it for something in my young adult life... Don't know about anybody else but I don't feel quite as satisfied as I thought I would when I was studying for that stupid exam.

 **It's just another chapter, not a sequel this year.**

As always,  
Happy reading.


	31. The Day Will Come When You Won't Be: Ta

**TheDarkerSide123** xD I hope not! Poor boy. Poor beanie. Thanks for the chapter help, agh, so much p.s. get well soon *throws medicine at you

 **The Sorrowful Deity** Oh, Jesus Rovia! I'm so not over it xD

 **The Flash Fanatic** I will try! Thanks!

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

 _We're at a picnic._

 _I like it here._

 _It's home._

 _The table is full and not just of food but of family. Everyone is here. Closest to me is Judith, sat on my lap, already saying full sentences and asking for the juice. Her hair is long and curly and clean, and she is so, so beautiful. Oliver is sat beside me, our hands tangled under the table. Carol is across from us and Dad is beside her with Michonne, an arm over her shoulder and a kiss on her cheek. At the end of the table, Glenn sits with his wife, their son on his lap, now a toddler. This isn't a big deal because it happens all the time. It's just another Sunday dinner._

 _Happily ever after._

 _This is our future._

 _This is what we have going for us._

* * *

Now, I am laid on my stomach; face in the dirt, dust in my nostrils and my wings spread, like I was told.

"Rick, why don't you take your axe, and cut your son's left arm off."

...

Abraham was the first to die.

"Suck...my...nuts..." were his last words before the first crack in his skull became The Grand Canyon.

"Did you fucking hear that?" Negan laughed breathlessly. "He said, _"Suck my nuts!"._ " He blew out and laughed, and then he kept going. Bashes landed so hard we'd flinch. Abraham's skull was a puddle and we were horrified. Negan laughed again. "Oh, my goodness! Look at _this!_ "

He swung his bat and blood span outward, a droplet catching my leg. My father turned away and I saw red splash across his cheek. Negan laughed again.

"You guys, look at my dirty girl!" he told us, then went to Rosita. He presented Lucille to her, covered in Abraham. "Sweetheart. Lay your eyes on _this._ "

She couldn't.

"Oh, fuck," he sighed. "Were you – Were you together? That sucks. But if you were, you should know there was a reason for all this. Red – and fuck, he was, is, and will ever be _red_. He just took one or six or seven for the team! So, take. A damn. _Look._ TAKE A DAMN LOOK!"

Daryl lashed out, swing a fist and threw it through Negan's jaw. Some Saviors tackled him and even though Dad yelled for Daryl to stop and even though Daryl was on the ground and even though Negan chose not to let Dwight kill him...

"That's not how it works. I already told you people: first one's free, then – what'd I fucking say? I said I would shut that shit down! No exceptions. Now, I don't know what kind of lying fuck-wits you've been dealing with but I'm a man of my word. First impressions are important. I need you to _know_ me. So, back to it."

...he killed Glenn, too.

After the first blow, he let Glenn sit up for longer than Abraham. He let him look at all of us, at Maggie, with his skull bashed in two and his mind holding on to the only thing left to him.

"Buddy, you still there?" Negan said over his gargles. "I just don't know. Fuck. It seems like you're trying to speak, but you just took a _hell_ of a hit. I just popped your skull so fucking hard, your eyeball just popped out, and it is _gross as shit!_ "

"Magg—" Glenn tried to say. She was so horrified she couldn't say anything. "Maggie...I'll...find...you."

"Oh." Negan let him suffer. He let us _all_ suffer. "Oh, fuck. I can see this is hard on you guys. I am sorry. I truly am. But I did say it. No exceptions!"

Blow after blow he laughed and laughed and laughed, and we _all_ cried.

 _KRACK!_  
 _KRUNCH!_  
 _SHCRUNK!_  
 _THRUNK!_

"You bunch of pussies," he told us. "I'm just getting _started._ Lucille is _thirsty._ She is a _vampire_ bat!" Negan faced the rest of us, a part of Glenn's scalp hanging between the bat's barbs. "What? Was the joke that bad?"

"I'm gonna kill you," Dad told him.

"What? I didn't quite catch that. You're gonna have to speak up."

Dad sniffed. "Not today, not tomorrow... but I'm gonna kill you."

"Jesus." Negan inhaled. "Simon, what did he have, a knife?"

"Uh, he had a hatchet," Simon answered casually.

"A hatchet?"

"An ax."

Negan laughed in Dad's face. "Simon's my right-hand man," he said. "Having one of those is important. I mean, what do you have left without them? A whole lot of work. Do you have one? Maybe one of these fine people still breathing? Oh. Or did I..." He clicked his tongue and laughed. "Sure. Yeah. Give me his ax."

Simon did, and then Negan took my dad's collar and dragged him into the RV.

"I'll be right back. Maybe Rick will be with me. And if not, _well,_ we can just turn these people inside out, won't we?" Negan laughed and disappeared inside. "I mean the ones that are left."

While they were gone, the Saviors didn't let us move or speak or even close our eyes. Maggie didn't stop crying. None of us did. I kept mine under control. No harsh breaths or breakdowns. My back stayed straight and my cheeks dried after long enough, and I listened to the Saviors talk about missing breakfast, wanting pussy, trading this record for that one: "Fuck your shit, man, I ain't listening to that _Easy Street_ crap for anythin'! Fuckin' _torture_." One guy has a chainsaw and another has a devil face tattoo. The ground began to dry up as the sun came through the trees and beat down unrelentingly on our heads, but our bodies were still cold. Then, _hours_ later, when we hear the RV engine returning, they all go very quiet again. The RV parked and Dad was shoved out of the door. Negan stepping out behind him. Dad was a fractured window; barely holding in one piece. All cracked and dented out of shape.

"Here we are," Negan said, dropping him to his knees in front of us. Abraham's blood-splash was dried over Dad's cheek. Lucille hung by Negan's leg, still exhausted after her fill. A vampire bat, I kept thinking, and I imagined her licking her lips, wooden tongue running over barbed teeth. "Let me ask you something, Rick. Do you even know what that little trip was about?"

Dad said nothing. He looked at us, still afraid, still thinking: _I'll get us out of this. I will._

"Speak when you're fucking spoken to."

Still, nothing.

"That trip was about the way you looked at me," Negan explained. "I wanted to change that. I wanted you to understand."

His grin had not wavered. Not all night. I've never hated a grin before.

"But you're still looking at me in that same _fucking_ way. In _your_ scrambled eggs, and that's not gonna work." He knelt to my dad and bared his teeth again. "So, do I give you another chance?"

Lucille woke up, briefly, but Negan held her to resignation when Dad said, "Yes. Yes."

"Okay!" Negan said, slapping his back while he stood again. "Alright. Then here it is. The _grand_ prize game! What you do next, will decide whether your fucked-up day becomes everyone's _last_ fucked-up day, or just another fucked-up day."

Negan pointed.

"Get some guns to the back of their heads."

Several Saviours stepped forward. I got that feeling like I was being watched, only I knew I was. But the feeling was different. The feeling was the feeling you get when, instead of eyes, it's a firearm.

"Good," Negan told them all. "Level with their noses, so when you have to fire..." He made a, " _pow!_ " noise and an explosion with his hand in front of his face. "It'll be a _real fucking mess._ "

And then he asked for me...

"Kid. Right here."

I didn't move.

"Kid," Negan repeated. "Right now."

Steadily, I got up and strolled across to him. I avoided looking at Dad and instead kept my eyes narrowed and aimed at Negan. He said something to me about southpaw but I didn't understand it, which annoyed me, and I said, " _What?_ "

He unbuckled and removed his belt, still grinning...

"Are you a leftie?"

I was scowling, and very flatly, I said, "No."

Negan poked his tongue out between his teeth and bit it. "Good," he chirped, and started tying his belt around my left bicep, tight. With a snarl, he asked, "That hurt?"

"No," I smirked.

"It should," he told me. "It's supposed to." With another taut yank, he was done. "Alright. Get down on the ground, kid. Next to Daddy. Spread them wings!"

He knocked off my hat and in my descent, pushed me so I was flat. In that moment, I imagined someone trying to rape me and I realised it was a memory, so I laid my cheek in the dirt and stared ahead of me, catatonic, waiting for the memory to go away again. That's never happened before; wanting to forget again. I'm always so desperate for the memories to come back to me, but not that one. That one I wanted to forget again. But I couldn't.

"Simon. You got a pen?"

"Yeah."

Simon, the 61%, threw one over and Negan knelt beside me again with a groan. He said, "Sorry, kid. This is gonna be as cold as a warlock's ballsack. Like he's hanging his ballsack above you, and just _draaaged,_ right across your forearm."

This description is not accurate or funny. The pen against my skin is smooth and uncomfortable and over quickly; one, straight, horizontal line half way up my forearm.

"Give you a little leverage," Negan added.

"Please don't," Dad asked him.

"Me? I ain't doin' shit." The pen clipped shut, and dirt crunched under Negan's boots while he stood over us again. "Rick, why don't you take your axe, and cut your son's left arm off."

...

"Right on that line."

It takes a second for this to sink in. I thought it was over. I thought, after Abraham and Glenn, Negan would say his part and let us go. We're already done. Crushed. Backed into docility with the saddles ready on our shoulders. But Negan...

He.

 _Still._

Isn't.

Finished.

"Now, I know, I know. You have to process that for a second. That makes sense," Negan tells him. "Still though, I'm gonna need you to do it, or _all_ these people are gonna die. Then Carl dies. Then the people back home die. And then you, eventually. I'm gonna keep you breathing for a few years just so you can _stew_ on it."

What he's saying. It isn't a question. It's instruction and fact and truth. The cruellest kind of it. The rest of us aren't getting out of this alive unless we do as we're told today. The people back home, too. All. Of. Them. It's not up to Dad to decide anymore.

"You – you don't have to do this," Michonne begs, desperate. I've never seen her desperate. I know it. Not like this. Her smile is so forced she's crying. "We understand. We understand. We—"

" _You_ understand, yeah!" Negan exclaims. "I'm not sure Rick does."

Dad's trying to meet my eyes but I'm not letting him. I'm thinking – I don't know what I'm thinking. I'm thinking this is really going to happen. I'm thinking I'm going to lose my arm, like Oliver. Shit, I'm going to lose my arm. There isn't much else you can think about in a situation like this.

"I'm gonna need a clean cut," Negan goes on at him. "Right there on that line. Now, I know this is a fucked-up thing to ask, but it's gonna have to be like a..." He mulls over for the right word. "...a salami slice. Nothin' messy. Clean. Forty-five degrees. Give us something to fold over. We got a _great_ doctor, the kid'll be fine... probably."

Still, Dad isn't moving.

My heart is throbbing around my tongue, blocking air.

"Rick." Negan's getting impatient. "This needs to happen _now_. Chop chop. Or..." I watch Lucille dip over my head steadily, the pieces of Abraham and Glenn tangled in her barbs. "...I crush the little fucker's skull myself."

"It can – it can... It can be me." Dad's voice buckles, sticks, then dies and comes back undead. "It can be me." He stammers. "You can do it to me. I can... I can go, with – with you."

"No. This is the only way. Rick, pick up the axe." Negan stands again, and as he keeps talking the roar inside his chest grows. " _Not_ making a decision, is _a_ _big fucking decision!_ You really wanna see all these people _die!_ You will! You will see _every, ugly, fucking, thing!_ "

Dad is sobbing.

"Oh my _God!_ " Negan complains gleefully. "Are you gonna make me count? Okay, Rick, you win! I am fucking counting. THREE!"

" _PLEASE! IT CAN BE ME! PLEASE!_ "

"TWO!"

Negan's knelt now, right in Dad's face.

Grin to hysteria.

He slaps him and Dad wails.

"This is it," Negan whispers.

Dad screams. I can't help the shaking anymore. My whole body is a shudder and Dad takes my hand, holding it still, so, so gently.

He's  
still  
 _screaming._

While he picks up the axe.

While I tell him, "Dad, just do it. Just do it."

Even while he raises his hand above his head, and then... The screaming stops. My eyes are shut. Everything is quiet. I don't know what's happened but I do. _I do._ Negan broke him. Worse than a fractured window. He's shattered. Disintegrated. My father – the man so broken there's no window left.

Negan's voice is very very calm...

"You answer to me.

You provide for me.

You _belong_ to me."

Dad is nodding, his breath so fast it's _in_ out _in_ out _in_ out _in_ out all at once. His face is grabbed so hard he can't even close his own mouth.

"SPEAK WHEN YOU'RE FUCKING SPOKEN TO!" Negan roars. "You answer to me! You provide for _me!_ "

"I provide for you!"

"YOU BELONG TO ME! RIGHT!"

"...right..."

" _Right!_ " Negan nods proudly, points. " _That_ is the look I wanted to see!"

He stands up, collects the axe. He tells us we did it, praises us. All of us did it. Even Abraham and Glenn. "Hell, they get the _Spirit Award_ for sure!" He tells us today was productive, and that he hopes we get it now, that we understand how things work. He tells us that things have changed and that anything we had going for us is over.

And then they take Daryl.

"He's got guts. Not a little _bitch_ like someone I know." Negan tells Dad, "I like him. He's mine now." He tells him if we try to rescue him he's going to cut pieces off and leave them on our doorstep, or, "fucking _better yet..._ " he'll make Dad do it himself.

And then they file to their vehicles.

"Welcome to a brand-new beginning, you sorry _fucks!_ " Negan calls out. Some Saviors are taking photos. "I'll leave you a truck. Use it to cart all the crap you're gonna find me. We'll be back for our first offering in one week, until then..."

He throws Dad's ax down beside us.

"Ta ta!"

* * *

"Maggie."

She's standing up, hobbling for her husband's corpse.

"Maggie," Dad croaks again. Someone is sobbing. "Maggie, you need to sit down. Maggie."

"No."

"We need to get you to the Hilltop."

"You need to go get ready."

"For what?" Dad asks.

"To fight them," she manages to say.

I look up to her. All this time, I was so set on beating them, so set on teaching them a lesson I didn't even consider they'd have something so much worse in store for us. I was so wrong. Enid warned me and I let my pride get in the way.

"They have Daryl," Dad tells Maggie. "They have an army. We would die – all of us."

"Go home." She can hardly breathe. "Take everybody with you. I can get there by myself."

"You can barely stand up."

"I need to go! _You_ need to go to Alexandria!" Maggie orders breathlessly. "You were out – out here for me."

"We still are," Dad tells her.

She sobs loudly and I wipe another stream of tears before anybody sees.

"I can make it now," Maggie pleads. "I need you to go back. I can't have you out here. I can't have you...allouthereanymore. Ineedyoutogoback!"

"Maggie, we're not letting you go," Michonne says. "Okay?"

"You have to."

Dad sighs. "It's not gonna happen."

I stand up, aching. Sasha gets up, too, says, "I'm taking her. I'm gonna get her there. I'm gonna keep her safe." She takes her elbow. "I'm not giving you a choice."

"I'm taking him with me," Maggie cries. She moans in pain when she kneels down to Glenn's body.

"I'm gonna take him," Sasha whispers to Rosita. She looks at Abraham and her face folds up in tears. "That's what I'm gonna do."

While Sasha, Eugene and Rosita take Abraham, we try to help Maggie lift Glenn's shoulders but she waves us away. "I need to do this. Please."

"We need to help you," Aaron tells her softly.

I touch her shoulder, whisper, "I got it. I got it."

"No. No."

"Pl – Please let us," Dad asks. "He— He's our family, t – He's our family, too."

She's sobbing, turning around in my arms and I hold onto her, and she cries and cries and cries. Her every move is a cry. Every step and every breath and every thought. I help lift him. Glenn. And Dad, Michonne, Aaron and I carry him to the RV, and when we've gotten Abraham in, too, we all drive home in silence.

* * *

 _I'm at the picnic again._

 _I still like it here._

 _But it isn't our future._

 _I don't sit with Judith on my lap. My father isn't sitting opposite me with his arm around Michonne's shoulders. My hand is not tangled in Oliver's under the table, holding on to that little piece of each other to prove that we're both alive and alright and together..._

 _No._

 _It doesn't work like that._

 _Not anymore._

* * *

 **Notes**

I will forever be triggered by _Easy Street._ *shivers

Anyway, this episode was so fucking sad I am so mad and agh it was great.

RIP Abraham Ford  
RIP Glenn Rhee

Fuuuuuck.

 **Preview: _"Everything's changed since they brought us here. I can't explain who 'they' are or where 'here' is or how long it's been. I won't. I don't want to anymore. I know it doesn't make much sense. I know. It's just – I'm so... tired, and, I need... I need the noise in my head to stop. But, not yet. I can hold out for a little longer, for just enough time to explain why. But after that, that's it..."_**

Next chapter up in about a month. Maybe sooner. Depends on how well life is going xD The more I upload the more I'm avoiding something in real life so we'll just have to see...

As always,  
Happy reading.


	32. The Well, Part 1: The Act

**RHatch89** thanks!

 **Guest** xD it's 2012 in this. I promise Oliver is sixteen in 2012. Don't worry.

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** thankyouthankyouthankyou

 **The Flash Fanatic** thanks! Yeah, the first time I wrote it I was disgusted in a totally new way xD I had to take breaks xD

 **The Sorrowful Deity** xD omg I know. He was metaphorically gelded!

 **DampishPoet** me, too, poor lady Green-Rhee.

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

Everything's changed since they brought us here. I can't explain who 'they' are or where 'here' is or how long it's been. I won't. I don't want to anymore. I know it doesn't make much sense. I know. It's just – I'm so... tired, and, I need... I need the noise in my head to stop. But, not yet. I can hold out for a little longer, for just enough time to explain why. But after that, that's it... alright?

Alright.

When I came to, my body jostled. I heard dirt and stones cracking under rubber, so I looked, and saw Roan pulling a wagon behind him; me and Carol on it. She was still unconscious. Our faces adjacent. Her forehead nudged my chin from the wagon's movement and I looked up to the sun. By its position, I knew we were headed north. I smelled old leaves and maple trees, and tasted Ventolin in my mouth – I wondered why until I felt, in my hand, a small, circular-shaped inhaler that looked like some weird gum container. It belonged to one of the two men who rescued us. When I looked, one man was sat on the bay horse and the other was walking alongside Roan. I remembered, right after I collapsed, one of the two men stuffing the strange inhaler against my mouth and yelling, "Breathe in, kid. Come on, it doesn't work unless you breathe!" It wasn't like mine. It was one of those weird inhalers with powder inside rather than spray, so when I finally did get a breath, I almost choked.

The wagon was rusty and cold under my cheek. Wood scuffed my knees and splintered my hand while I sat myself up. Carol started coming in and out of consciousness, in too much pain and with too many fresh injuries to understand what was going on. Her coat was over her front and my hood was folded up under her head. Daryl's shirt had been taken off me, too, laid over my chest while I slept, but it fell to show the _'YOU NEED paul JESUS rovia'_ T-shirt and I tried not to blush while I buttoned it up on me again.

"Oliver," Morgan said. He walked over from a tree he'd just marked with his knife. "How are you feeling?"

I scowled ahead of me and shrugged. The sun was too bright so I squinted and kept my eyes glued down at Roan's tail. It swayed in the breeze and knocked around between the heels of his hind legs, and when I put on Patrick's glasses I could see every follicle. Occasionally, Carol's cheek would bump my knee and I'd shut my eyes; even with glasses on, scared I wouldn't see her clearly enough.

 _Please, baby, just let me go..._

Morgan told me what she said to him: "The world doesn't decide, you decide."

 _Then why, Carol?_ I kept asking her in my head. _Why did you decide to go again? Why do you_ always _decide to go?_ But I didn't get an answer.

The walkers came.

By then I'd started walking again, so I was helping fight. At one point a corpse grabbed Roan's face and tore out the side of his left ear with its teeth. I killed it, then sliced Roan's ear clean off with my hunting knife. Just a spurting stump. I'd never heard a horse scream before. I thought that if I cut him free from the harness he'd be able to run, and he did, but in the process, I missed one rope and the whole wagon was knocked over on its side. Carol was thrown. There were so many walkers attracted by the gunfire. I made sure none got close to the wagon but in doing that I wasn't looking at it, my back to it, to her... so Carol tried to go again. I was so angry. Even when I found her, saved her —even when we all did because others had come to rescue us, too— Carol looked at me like she couldn't see me anymore. She looked at me like I was one of the dead. And I couldn't stand it.

I.

 _Can't._

Stand.

It.

This is why the noise has to stop. This is why I can't explain anymore... I've locked myself in a prison far away in my head and I've thrown away the key, because I swear, I am _never_ going to come out again.

* * *

 **~Third Person/Past Tense~**

* * *

 _Better stop dreaming of the quiet life  
'Cos it's the one we'll never know  
And quit running for that runaway bus  
'Cos those roset days are few  
And stop apologising for the things you've never done  
'Cos time is short and life is cruel  
But it's up to us to change  
This town called Malice..._

There's a reason Oliver was the understudy in Romeo and Juliet in eighth grade... He could act, and he was good, too. But only in school. Oliver couldn't do it in real life when things actually counted. In front of the bullies or his father or walking home in the dark, he was still just as weak and small as he looked on the outside. Even in those five months alone, he avoided people and he was good at it. Even in the prison and Alexandria, he only didn't avoid people so much because someone was always there to hand over the pecans for him.

But not now.

Now he is in The Kingdom: a high school turned _—literal—_ kingdom, with Carol patched up in the infirmary and Morgan waiting for her to wake up. But Oliver is on his own. A one-man performance. But at least he's had some experience. He's been watching a master in her field for over a year, after all. He went to all the classes and extracurricular activities; took down all her notes and picked up all her tricks. One thing he learned was that to perform anything well enough, an actor needs to know his surrounding characters as well as he knows his own. An actor must also know who his audience is. But the thing is, if Oliver is the actor then The Kingdom has become both his surrounding characters _and_ his audience, which makes things tricky. He has to be one step ahead. The Kingdommers are like children, almost; munchkins living happily in their magical land of Oz, and Oliver knows he's meant to go home soon. But he can't yet. He's keeping his heels apart and the words, _"There's no place like home,"_ as far away from his lips as he can.

His act, _The Act_ :  
A Possum... the sequel.

The Kingdom has well over Alexandria's numbers in population. _Well_ over. It's bigger here, too. There are places Oliver still hasn't explored yet and this is his third day at the Kingdom. When he arrived, Oliver had a plethora of questions for them, but he knew they had even more questions for him...

First question: "Where'd you get your scars?"

Second question: "Why are you frowning?"

And so, Oliver's stopped frowning. He's made himself look not so: _If-you-value-your-life-don't-speak-to-me,_ and a little more: _Hello-nice-to-meet-you-I'm-new-here-what's-your-name?_ instead. He tells people in school he got his scars from a skiing accident as a kid, and even though Oliver's never been skiing before in his life this didn't stop him from keeping up a ten-minute conversation with Tristan Knaggs, a sixteen-year-old boy in the next seat over, about how snow up on the mountains can look so bright you need sunglasses (he'd read this in a book).

Sometimes, Oliver'll catch people looking at him; at his arm, mostly. He doesn't blame them. Kids either think it's scary, gross, or cool. The ones who ever say anything about it, though, think it's cool, so he doesn't mind being the boy who survived a rotter bite. But sometimes people will just stare at him because he's staring off into space, very far away, forgetting he's supposed to still be pretending. Oliver is never aware of when it happens but when it's over he knows in those moments he must look very strange. He'll feel how foggy his eyes are, the goose-bumps all over his skin, how his body will be stiff from sitting absolutely still for too long. The only part of him that does move are his fingers, tapping like dogs digging for treasure on the desk or his knee, and he knows this because his hand will ache. It's usually in school; where his mind wonders best. He'll go back into his mind prison, where all the locked away parts of himself have filled their cells with the things he doesn't do or say or think about anymore, and for a little while Oliver will forget to not be Oliver. One time, the teacher waved a hand in front of his face and he didn't even blink until she said his name. Regardless, when Oliver _does_ catch people staring, he'll be quick enough to smile and wave at them and then they _have_ to smile and wave back out of politeness.

Another trick he's figured out is to imagine people like walkers (like the way performers are meant to imagine people in their underwear) and it makes him feel better.

Not right now, though. Right now, Oliver is getting sucker-punched directly in the nose.

With a grunt, he reels back into the dirt. His glasses go flying but luckily they aren't broken. Warm red oozes between Oliver's fingers while he clutches his nose and spectacles in one hand. He looks up at the fucker who did it. Morayo Dimka. Or Ray, for short. He's Oliver's height, around Oliver's strength, and almost a year older. His jet-black dreadlocks are short but long enough to be tied back out of his eyes in a small bun above his head, and he's got a buzzed undercut that Oliver sometimes stares at in class because of the swirly shapes in it. Ray's eyes are wide apart and shining with rage and his mouth is set into a permanent smoulder. His skin is dark brown and, Oliver decides, surprisingly painful when it connects to your nose at high speed.

"Shit!" Oliver rasps, shuffling back on his elbow and the ball of his palm. He's up against the wire-mesh fence, cornered. "Agh, shit, man."

Ray's hands close into his shirt, but Oliver anticipates his yank. He uses it to drive his momentum, bringing a knee up against Ray's groin as hard as he can with a _crunch_. Ray's cry is sucked into his throat and he collapses to his knees, clutching between his legs. Oliver bends down to him, grins in his face, re-sits his glasses, and slaps Ray's cheek.

"I win."

"S...Screw you," Ray groans.

"Aw. My bad," Oliver tuts, pouting. He licks a finger and wipes away a blood smear he'd left on Ray's cheek. "Better luck next time, hey, sport?"

Ray is furious. There's steam spewing out of his ears and nose. He watches Oliver lean up and grin at their noisy audience, circling the inside of the goat pen with his arms up...

"Alright, fuckers," he tells them, hopping side to side and shaking his arms now, "who's next?"

Fucker number two steps in, climbing over the mesh while a few goats bleat loudly and try to run away from him. His name is Leviathan O'Donnel. They say Leviathan was sculpted, created like art, but by one of those old artists who made ugly kings and queens look flawless; their art is beautiful but you can see the lack of passion inside the paint — the lack of _anything_ inside it. That's Leviathan. He's got nothing in his brains but his eyes are made of peridotite and his skin was shaped in sterling and his long hair was wound from gold. He's like a young stupid Thor. He's taller than Oliver and a _whole_ lot stronger, too. So strong his muscles bulge inside his T-shirts, which is a hazard; one time Leviathan's bicep brushed against Oliver's chest and he almost blacked out from the hormonal trauma of it all, but he figures Leviathan's younger than him by three and a half months so that has to count for something.

Leviathan's sweating.

"You're inspiring, man," Oliver tells him, grinning like they might be friends. Young Thor is bemused for a millisecond but then charges almost immediately, hammer in hand that's actually just a fist. But a _big ass_ fist. Oliver's eyes widen for a second and he seizes up, muttering, "Shit!" in surprise, but he's fast enough to swipe out Leviathan's legs with his foot.

Leviathan goes spinning, hitting the goat-shelter so hard it collapses into smithereens. He blinks at the sky, dazed.

"Jeez, man, it was a freaking compliment!" Oliver yells breathlessly, and in one movement he comes down, shaking Leviathan's whole skull when his elbow smashes through his nose.

Oliver is ready to stand up and walk away, let that be done with it: Ray clutching his balls and Leviathan hugging his face. But in a rebellious uproar a whole herd of teenagers step into the goat enclosure, too, trampling them like a stampede. Whose side they're on is a mystery. Some are on Oliver's and some are on Ray and Leviathan's and some are just fighting for the sake of fighting. Regardless, Oliver kicks and shoves and shouts and punches, twisting around and thrashing his whole body so nobody can keep hold of him. The goblin in his chest has not gone away. It's the only escaped inmate of the prison in Oliver's head that he hasn't been able to arrest yet, and now it's laughing and screeching at the top of its lungs. Goats are escaping and other adults are yelling and trying to break them all up but it's got to be at least twelve teenagers against four grown-ups, girls and boys included.

Someone hits him in the ear and someone else yanks off his shoe, but Oliver manages to grab it back and punch the kid who took it, and then another girl hits him through the chest and suddenly Oliver has no air inside his body. Still, he catches her nose with his forearm, then grabs another boy's junk so hard the poor victim screams, and then Oliver is staring up at a huge monster of a girl who yells, "Punk!" and is raising a brick over his face...

"HOLY—"

Seconds before his skull is going to get turned into a pothole, something roars. Then, like spooked birds, everybody still standing flees for their life while a king and his tiger march across their kingdom. This is a scene Oliver never had imagined witnessing in his whole life – King Ezekiel kind of does his own thing around here, so he's not particularly surprised.

Oliver laughs, because he's staggering to the ground and losing his footing as startled teenage bodies wiz and spin around him. One goat gets angry and tries to ram him in the side and Oliver has to shove it away and yell. Ezekiel, the king, with Shiva, his tiger, meet the three boys under the shadow of the gazebo (which is where they're meant to be in school right now). They're all too beat-on to make an efficient escape, but at least Oliver isn't crying like the other two. Oliver just needs an inhaler, which he has now.

"What is the meaning of this madness?!" Ezekiel shouts, killing Oliver's grin on sight. Ezekiel's voice is low and intimidating, and not even _Oliver_ can act like anybody with a pet _tiger_ isn't completely terrifying; even if they do talk like they're in a _Macbeth_ play. The king is tall, with dark weathered skin and a short beard. His hair is long and greying and dreadlocked, falling past his shoulders and decorated with a few beads and feathers with a part braided in the back. He wears a heavy trench coat and gloves and carries a long cane with a handle on the top in the shape of a griffin, and held in his fist is a single chain that's looped around Shiva's neck.

Shiva...

She is twice all their sizes _combined,_ and if you times that by a trillion you'll get the strength of only one paw, let alone the rest of her. She eats more than ten men and she doesn't lay one claw on the king or his people.

"Boys," Ezekiel rumbles. "Come out of there and explain yourselves immediately."

They do, wincing while they leave the enclosure. A woman and a man have managed to chase down the escapee goats and both give them grumpy looks while they get them back inside again. Ray and Leviathan are both stumbling over accusations and Oliver is heaving his breath, sat on his ass away from them on the second step of the gazebo, with dirt, grass stains and small blood smudges all over his knees and hoodie. He clutches his nose and ribs, aware that Ezekiel doesn't look any more enlightened – sometimes, if there's a lot happening at once, Oliver still slips up and forgets speech is important to the Possum role...

"They were being dicks to Juni," he hisses, sounding like a duck through his hand and the blood. "They were telling him they were gonna feed him to the walkers."

"Not true!"

"He's lying!"

Oliver ignores them. He doesn't need to prove himself.

Still, dissatisfied, Ezekiel steps across to Ray and Leviathan, stood over them like a tower. Shiva stays put, stood over Oliver to look into his eyes with her own deep and yellow ones. It's impossible to accurately explain the full experience of getting stared down by a full-grown tiger, but in the very least detail, this is definitely the closest Oliver's come to peeing his pants since he was a little kid. When he goes to stand, her lip twitches in warning so Oliver stops moving. Oliver stops breathing. He's staring at her long, sharp, pearly fangs and swallowing his heart back inside his body.

The chain around her neck, held in Ezekiel's fist, may as well be string should she decide she's hungry. Oliver wonders if tigers can smell blood like sharks can, and whether that might tempt her enough since there's a fountain coming out of his face right now. Still, fear of becoming lunch aside, Shiva is the definition of beauty. Oliver would reach out and touch her, but he has a hunch he'd lose another hand.

There he was thinking _zebra_ were the coolest striped animals alive...

"Boys, please, do share with me the reasoning of this hostile behaviour?"

People and students are stood off to the side now, those who were in the fight and those who weren't, all watching with crossed arms and entertained expressions. Oliver notices a small group of girls and watches them, then smirks. They giggle and walk away.

"Juni was wearing a dress!" Ray hollers. "He's a little freak!"

"And what of it, young man?" Ezekiel questions sternly. "Should I also feed myself to the fallen for the feathers in my hair?"

Ray looks like a toddler now, caught drawing on the walls with his eyes on the floor and embarrassment heating his face. His voice comes out very small... "No. But—"

"Then neither should anybody else," Ezekiel silences him, "for whatever garment they choose to lay upon their bodies. Understood?"

Ray glares at Oliver an Oliver smirks back at him like he did those girls, but winks this time. Ray's cheeks turn mauve red and he lets out an irritated sigh, then looks up and nods...

"Understood, King Ezekiel."

" _Understoohh, Kihhg Zeekeel,_ " Leviathan slurs through a split lip. Oliver may have broken his nose, by how crooked it looks and how badly it's bleeding. Ezekiel looks at him accusingly and Oliver makes a face like _oops_ , until he realises Ezekiel's waiting for a reply.

"Oh. Yeah. Totally, man."

Shiva growls at him.

"King Ezekiel," Oliver blurts. "Sorry, sir—I mean, King."

Ezekiel almost rolls his eyes because Oliver's grinning again, which is making Ray crack up, and when Leviathan starts up (which sounds horrible because he's hurting so much) Oliver and Ray crack up even more, but then Shiva roars again and they all go silent immediately. The goats are all so freaked out a few of them look close to having heart attacks. Ezekiel sends all three boys to the infirmary, telling them to keep exactly ten steps between one another, so, they do as they're told without arguing.

Juni really was wearing a dress today. He's barely eleven years old and has no friends and if anyone speaks to him he doesn't move his eyes from your mouth, because he's deaf, so he lip-reads, and he always looks very focussed like he's thinking very hard about something, and he's quiet, too. Quieter than Oliver, if that's possible. He spends his time obsessing over math and neatening things like books or pencils and pens without using them. He's also very fascinating to look at. His face seems to be several different ethnicities at once, which Oliver has never seen before. Juni has brown skin but pale, hazel, epicanthic eyes, and then his hair is smooth and falls in loose waves that stop at his shoulders, coloured naturally in different shades of brown from dark brunet to dirty blond, all tucked back with a green headband. His jaw and cheekbones are square, and his nose is small, and he has freckles all over the place. He's short for his age with narrow shoulders and a long pudgy frame, and Oliver overheard someone say he's got aspergers syndrome.

So, long story short, Juni is a living punching bag.

For two days, Oliver sat back and listened to the taunts, thinking of those wildlife documentaries he used to watch in school where the camera-men couldn't step in and rescue the seal pups; just had to watch while the polar bears came and tore them apart.

But today, during recess, was the last straw.

Ray and Leviathan, who, admittedly, are both disgustingly handsome and confident and everybody likes them and they have parents in high up positions here, were walking on either side of Juni's desk. Oliver could see the evil grins on their faces. Everyone could. And then, suddenly, they grabbed a chair leg each and threw Juni to the decking. The poor kid smacked his nose and lost a baby tooth through his bottom lip. Blood everywhere. He could see Dumb and Dumber's words: "God, did you see your face?" and "Little fruit-loop's gonna need all the make-up he can find to cover up that bruise," and "Oh, we should totally lock you outside the wall and tie you to a tree for the deadens to get y—"

And Oliver snapped.

He stood up, walked over, and threw Ray clean over the gazebo balcony. He landed right in the goat enclosure. In retaliation, Leviathan grabbed Oliver's collar and dragged him down after him, scuffing the stairs and ground while his Hulk-strength scooped him up over the mesh fence. The teacher hadn't returned yet and the other adults around were still in shock and most of the other kids either watched from the gazebo or followed them to join in or chant, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" Apart from Juni, who was taken home by another student. Oliver was going to walk away, and he went to, but Ray said, "Hey," and the second Oliver turned around he was punched in the face.

And the rest is history.

Oliver's going to get into trouble with Morgan. It's only their second full day here and he's already getting into fights, and that isn't even the most of it... but Oliver doesn't care. It's not like he's staying for very long anyway.

* * *

Turns out, Morayo's balls are still functioning and Leviathan's nose was able to get reset (he screamed a lot – the doctor smacked the back of Ray's head for laughing, and then smacked Oliver's for laughing at that). Oliver's nose has almost stopped bleeding (the smack on the head didn't exactly help though), so when everything is done, they're all made to shake hands and promise on some weird _Ezekiel-oath-thing_ that they won't start another fight and will try to become friends.

"Bullshit," is what they all _actually_ agree on when nobody hears, but in truth, this is a start; they _are_ finding common ground on _something,_ at least _._ Soon though, Ray and Leviathan are gone and Oliver is with Carol, sat by her side on a chair with bloody tissues screwed up in his nostrils.

Morgan left her a rabbit's foot; for luck. Oliver left the chocolate he stole from home; for her chocoholism, along with a Cherokee rose he put in a coke bottle, returning the gift idea she gave him on his birthday. He found the blossom growing behind the stables.

Outside the window, a wind chime (made with a strainer and keys) blows in the breeze. The noise makes Oliver think of the chain around Shiva's neck. Last night, he fell asleep in here and had a dream that he had a chain around his own neck. He could hear it when he moved, like the wind chimes. Tied to the end of each chain were metal weights that said things like _'Walkers'_ and _'Dying'_ and _'Family'_ and _'Bruising'_ and _'Saviors'_ and _'Maggie'_ and _'Carol'._ Oliver tried and tried to break free of them all, but the more he fought the more chains were added, until he was getting crushed under them, drowned in iron, and he woke up in a cold sweat and gripped a hold of her limp hand until he could calm down again.

It's been two and a half days since Carol was awake.

But she's healing.

The doctor says she just needs her rest.

Her big coat is still hanging over the back of the seat and Oliver picks at the bullet holes in the sleeve for a while. He doesn't notice he's daydreaming, deep inside his mind again. He's with Carl and Enid and Bean in the forest, and they're dancing in the rain, throwing armfuls of air back into the air. In his head, the air shakes the clouds and rain comes down on the rotting forest floor and brings it back to life again, and they all scoop up the leaves and throw them into the trees, turning winter into spring so the trees are full and colourful and blooming...

Someone is saying his name but it isn't until there is a shake on his shoulder that Oliver snaps out of it. Morgan is leant forward, frowning at him, and Oliver pulls the tissues out of his nose quickly. Morgan sighs, like he's worried, then goes to the door and closes it. Quickly, Oliver tells Carol, "I love you," and kisses her cheek and leaves, only Oliver doesn't do any of that because Morgan's under the impression he's a normal teenage boy who doesn't kiss or talk to sleeping people.

"Where'd you get your bruises?" he asks.

Oliver shrugs, "I already had these ones." This is a believable lie. Oliver's whole body is still covered in blue and purple; from himself and the Saviors and just generally trying not to die, but Morgan isn't buying it. His eyebrows furrow and he shakes his head...

"No, not those. Look at you, you've still got blood drying in your nose."

Oliver gets up before Morgan can look closer.

"Don't worry," he grins. "It's no big. Really."

"Oliver..."

"What?" he laughs. Morgan's watching him like he's wondering where all his frowns went, but he doesn't know Oliver traded them all in for an infinite supply of smile-masks. This one's wearing out so he quickly slips on another without Morgan noticing.

"Listen, I gotta go to the stables," Oliver chirps, pushing his glasses up his nose, "chores; _contribute,_ right? See you later, sir." He's in Oliver's way, so Oliver grins, until finally, Morgan steps aside and lets him leave the infirmary.

* * *

The stables are essentially a row of storage freights redesigned into stalls, with an oval-shaped pen outside for training, and a large playing field behind the school which had a whole section fenced for turnout.

Roan is recovering from his amputation, and Benjamin, a young guard and one of the stable-hands, has taught Oliver how to look after the wound, which is what he's doing now; cleaning and re-wrapping the dressing around the horse's whole head. Daniel doesn't actually own Roan, like previously thought. Nobody does. Nobody even gave him a name. So, when Benjamin heard Oliver call him Roan it stuck. It isn't clear if Roan appreciates it, though; Oliver's not exactly in his good-books anymore after what he did to save him. Animals don't turn but the infection still kills them, but poor Roan doesn't understand this, and has bitten Oliver at least a dozen times since the boy chopped his ear off. Benjamin tells him not to take it personally, that Roan has always been a miserable douche-bag at the best of times: "Bites anybody who comes near him, especially in here. He hates being cooped up." Ben says, "It's a miracle he let you and Morgan get so close." Oliver doesn't tell him it probably had something to do with the trail-mix.

Honestly though, to be hated by a horse is a surprisingly harrowing ordeal, and Oliver only looks after him because Ben is here a lot and Ben is the only person in The Kingdom so far who Oliver doesn't secretly hate to be around.

Ben's eighteen and he's got hair like Jack from _Titanic._ He's really good with the horses, too. He does this thing where he runs one around in the pen for a while or something and then the horse follows him without a halter. Oliver saw him do it yesterday and Ben said he'd teach him. He said he'd get Oliver to do it with Roan one day, too (Oliver doesn't say so but he thinks this is going to be how he dies). But in the meantime, Ben's been teaching him to ride the other horses and take care of them with him, which is hard work and Oliver's hand is made of blisters now and he's not entirely sure he likes it a whole lot, but it's something to do.

Oliver always needs something to do here. When there's nothing to do anymore, things get bad again. _Oliver_ gets bad again. He'll go to Carol's room and stare at her while she sleeps, in his head telling her he hates her and that she should've shot him through the skull, too, that day in the grove when their lives changed forever, or at night he'll sit in a quiet secret place like one of the school buses by the wall and hurt himself until he can't use the right side of his body anymore, or he'll steal things he shouldn't like alcohol and candy and fruit from the recreational garden enclosure. So, to avoid the bad, Oliver's helpful, and what people count here for helpfulness he counts as filling time before the voices in his head break out of their cells and decide to finally kill him.

But he doesn't tell people this.

He tells people this place is cool and that he likes it here. He tells people their gardens are nice and that their food is tasty and he thanks them for getting him clean clothes and a place to sleep. Oliver is different here. He's a whole new person. He plays sports and is growing out his facial hair and he doesn't play ukulele or guitar or piano or ride skateboard anymore because that's lame and so is reading comic books and wearing zebra-stripe socks and talking to himself. He flirts with girls and even some boys, sometimes, and yesterday, Isabelle, who's sixteen and wears big sweatshirts, said she thought Oliver's glasses were cute, so he let her wear them during class and when they were dismissed she gave them back with a note wrapped around the frame that said:

 _'Meet me in the theatre auditorium tomorrow morning xo  
p.s. don't let the guards see'_

After this, during turn-out, Oliver told Ben and he said it sounded fun, like a date, and Oliver scoffed and said, "Not a date," but went along anyway.

So, this morning, Isabelle was waiting in one of the drama classrooms; she _psst_ at Oliver when he passed and he met her inside. They talked about school and her friends and smoked a cigarette she said she stole from her father, although they started kissing before they finished it. Then, when Isabelle slipped Oliver's hand into her underwear and took off her sweatshirt, nothing under it, she let him put his mouth against her heartbeat. Oliver wanted to _eat_ it. He wanted to tear it up in his teeth. The smell of cigarette smoke filled his nose and soon his mind ran away without him, so he undid his pants and she knelt down in front of him and as fast as it all started it was over even faster...

"Err. Thanks," he said, after, zipping and buttoning up, "for... uh, yeah."

"Yeah, sure," Isabelle said, pulling her sweatshirt back on. Her hair was messed up. "Wanna come get breakfast?"

"Um, actually, I gotta go do chores."

"Oh... another time then."

"Maybe."

"Well, what about the movie tonight? We could sit together?"

"Um, I'm not really into movies – I'll think about it."

"Yeah... sure."

Oliver flashed her a grin and she fell for it.

"Later, Oliver."

"Bye."

When he arrived to the stables a few minutes after that, Benjamin asked how it went and Oliver told him he was kidding, that there wasn't a girl at all, and then, later, at school, he and Isabelle didn't talk about what happened in the theatre. He and Isabelle didn't _talk_. Not to each other, at least. He doesn't think she told anyone, though, like he hasn't, so he isn't worrying, and he isn't worrying even more because during the fight with Leviathan and Ray and everyone, Isabelle didn't even join in to get back at him.

"Hey, you in here?"

"Yep," Oliver says, concentrating on dodging Roan's teeth and holding gauze at the same time – with only one hand. There's sunlight coming in through the stable door and Benjamin's shadow cuts across it. He gives Oliver a minute to wrap up the horse's skull again, letting him do it alone now because Oliver knows he can manage, and when he finishes, Ben gives him a thumbs-up and says, "Nice work, Apple."

Benjamin's taken to calling Oliver this because he is _'such a huge tooth-magnet'_ what with the missing hand and Roan's bad habit.

"Thanks— _ouch!_ "

This bite's right on the shoulder.

"Shit, you jinxed me!" Oliver growls, pushing Roan's face away because he's trying to bite him again. It's like he does it to pass time now. If he really wanted to he could crush Oliver with one kick, but Roan preferers to nip at the sensitive places, clamp down just hard enough for Oliver to yelp but not hard enough to break skin. Oliver's kind of used to it by now though, and he's already accepted that Roan's a spiteful Equus asshole.

Ben's laughing while he lets Oliver step through the stable door into the pen, out of Roan's reach. His ear still shoots back against his neck and he bares his teeth. Oliver rubs his shoulder, pushes his glasses up his nose.

" _Oddio, questo fa male._ "

Roan snaps his teeth and waves his head around angrily. Oliver ignores him, which he's learned helps, and eventually Roan puts his ear forward again and munches on a haynet. Oliver wishes people would do that to him; ignore him and let him put his ears forward. But all he ever does here is keep his ears forward, and _nobody_ leaves him alone. He sometimes considers if maybe he should start biting people, too. He's already heading there what with getting into that fight.

Oliver turns to Ben. "So, I was thinking about changing Roan's name to Walker instead? From first..." —he lifts his amputation— " _and_ lost-hand experience, I'd say it's pretty accurate."

Benjamin breaks up into a fit of laughs until he can settle and say, "I came in to say I just saw your guy headed into the theatre, took that lady in with him. She's awake—whoa, jeez, Apple."

Oliver's already turned on his heel, dodging Ben's eleven-year-old little brother and who is also currently sat on horseback. The horse spooks a little and Oliver apologises, then rockets past out of the enclosure. Right next door to the stables is the theatre. Oliver's given a friendly salute from a guard outside that he returns, and then he's rushing through the building quietly and carefully. On the left-side wall right as he goes in, there's a quotation that reads:

 _'Hope is the North Star. Let it Guide You.  
\- K.E'_

Might want to take a seat for this one.

It was reading this that finished Oliver this morning, with Isabelle. It reminded Oliver of one time last spring he and Carl spent a tangled evening rolling around under the shadows of the apple tree orchard together in Alexandria, all huffs and puffs and groans and moans while they whispered the galaxy into each other's mouths...

 _"See the North Star?"_

Oliver remembered digging his heels into Carl's back to hold onto him.

 _"If you ever get lost."_

Her hair felt like his; soft and smooth and knotted between fingers.

 _"Let it bring you back to me."_

So, this morning, while Isabelle was... uh, yeah – Oliver saw the words on the wall through the door and kept on thinking about him, and well, you get the picture.

The wheel chair and Morgan's shoulders turn in to the auditorium. Oliver barely catches a glimpse of Carol's sliver hair, but he still thinks he might collapse into a puddle of anxiety. He can hear Shiva's growling from inside and reassures himself that they're all not about to become cat food. His heart is pounding. He doesn't even know if he wants to do this. He wants to turn on his heel and run to a place he doesn't know, but he won't. And it's not because of Shiva, but Carol. He wants to see her, he does. Oliver wants to hold her hand and he wants them to say everything they've always been too afraid to say to each other. But after everything, he doesn't know if he can.

Oliver peeks around the wall, watching Morgan park Carol's chair in front of the stage. He can't see her just yet; Morgan's stood in the way, but he can see Ezekiel, who is sat in a prop throne in the centre of the stage, tiger by his side, and a kingdom landscape backdrop behind them.

Oliver can only imagine Carol's face.

"I, uh," Morgan says awkwardly. "I forgot to say that Ezekiel has a tiger."

Shiva doesn't like new-comers. She's sceptical and suspicious and protective of her kind, like Carol, so she roars. Shiva's roar is earth-shaking. Oliver can hear Carol's too _._ It's the sound in her chest. The sound of her soul. A roar like Shiva's only loud enough to move solar systems. Oliver used to do this in his head when he was a kid; make up soul sounds for people if he thought he knew them well enough. But he reminds himself he doesn't know Carol at all. Not anymore. He reminds himself that he is still locked inside the prison deep in his head, all covered in stale protectiveness so he can't feel the hurt anymore.

"Shiva," Ezekiel resonates. " _Enough._ "

Growls waver to snarls.

"The fair maiden has been through a myriad of trials," Ezekiel tells his tiger. "They are our guests."

"Chill it up, S," Jerry says through the grumbles. " _Chill. It. Up._ " Jerry is Ezekiel's right hand man. He's big and tall and dresses in a red leather suit with his hair slicked back into a pony-tail and his beard short and scruffy. He reminds Oliver of General Li from _Mulan,_ but just a super hippy version who grins at thin air and offers you weed if you say anything like _gnarly_ or _groovy_ or _totallybitching_ or _stellar_ to him — Ben told Oliver this, but he hasn't tried it yet.

"Jerry," Ezekiel says, "you are a faithful steward, but your words leave me pitch-kettled."

Oliver doesn't know what this means. Oliver doesn't know what _'chill it up'_ means either. But he can guess not knowing what they mean might be what _'pitch-kettled'_ means... To the new-comers, why the Kingdommers can't speak in present English is a mystery.

"I understand your concern, Shiva," Ezekiel moves on. "You haven't met Carol. Nor have I. But if she is a friend of Morgan, we shall consider her a friend of the realm until proven otherwise."

"She's doing better," Morgan tells him, "thanks to you and your people, so..."

"Indeed!" Ezekiel says. "It pleases me to see you up and about, Carol. I am King Ezekiel. Welcome to the Kingdom."

Rumbles echo from inside Shiva's chest across the building. Oliver feels the floorboards shudder.

"You have been addressed by the king, yet you remain silent," Carol is told. "Do I detect scepticism? Perhaps you think me mad. Perhaps you see this place as nothing more than a mirage. So, tell me, what do you think of The Kingdom, Carol? What do you think of the king?"

He asked Oliver the same questions when they met, and that was when Oliver's Possum Act began. He said this place was awesome. He said _the king_ was. He said Shiva was, "so much cooler than a zebra," and Ezekiel smiled and Jerry laughed and Oliver got the part he wanted.

It astounds and irritates Oliver that Carol does almost exactly the same thing...

"I think you're _amazing_."

But, after all, he has learned from the best.

"It's amazing!" she goes on, gasping. "And your Sheba..."

"It's, uh, Shiva," Jerry corrects her.

She swoons... " _Shiva._ Amazing. I would be speechless if I wasn't already speaking. I don't know what the hell's going on in the most _wonderful_ way!"

Ezekiel appreciates this.

"As Morgan is aware," he says, "I encourage those who find respite here to enjoy the fruits of our grandeur for as long as they like, so long as they contribute."

Oliver whispers the king's next words along with him...

"Drink from the well, replenish the well."

It's written on the wall inside Carol's infirmary room.

And then Ezekiel adds, "Once you've healed, of course."

"Of course," Carol jumps at it. "Of course! All about the well."

"Well said," Jerry praises. Jerry smiles as much as Oliver, but Jerry means his smiles. He means his smiles so much you can hear them without looking at him, whereas you wouldn't be able to tell Oliver's smiling unless you saw him. Oliver's a good actor but not _that_ good.

"Jerry," Ezekiel settles him. "Ah! Where are my manners?" He snaps his fingers and Jerry's elephant-like footsteps stomp around the stage for a second. "Please, partake. We have magnificent apples, nectarines, pomegranates. All grown right here inside the kingdom."

"It's fruit time," Jerry says.

"I-I couldn't," Carol sighs.

Shiva grumbles.

"Oh, come now," Ezekiel insists. "At least take a pomegranate."

"I always found them too much trouble."

"Sweet fruit surrounded by bitter," Ezekiel philosophises, "they're something of a contradiction, but heaven for the effort."

Still, Carol isn't interested. "You park some chocolate in front of me and watch it go bye-bye, but pomegranates," she sighs, "just not for me, thanks."

"Well, if there's anything you want or need," Ezekiel says. His voice echoes through the whole building, like he's been speaking on a stage his whole life. "If you enjoy music, we have a guitarist whose talent brings tears to the eye, and we have a small choir."

"Thank you," she says. "All I need is some more rest, and maybe a hairbrush." Her chuckle is sweet and light and Oliver almost plugs his own ears. "No one told me I'd be meeting royalty... Anyway uh, Your Majesty – I should call you _'Your Majesty'_ right?"

"You can."

"Thank you, Your Majesty. It's a pleasure."

"The pleasure is mine, Carol. Be well."

When he hears them coming, Oliver realises he can't do this, so he hightails it the way he came and dodges into the room he and Isabelle used this morning. There's a singed mark on the table-top. He peeks out the door window and reads the quote again: _'Hope is the North Star. Let it Guide you.'_ He wants to throw up; the fingers down throat kind. Morgan and Carol don't come this way, luckily. Oliver hears them being taken around back, which is a quicker way to the infirmary, but Oliver then realises he wants to get there first to tidy all his things. Why he thinks this will help make him feel better is a mystery, but he goes with it anyway.

He leaves the room and runs out the way he came in, and all the way around the building, but almost runs right into them on the other side. He dives behind the cafeteria wall and peeks down the outside corridor and decking that looks out over the grounds and theatre. Morgan wheels Carol down the ramp and parks her in the path, waving to two Kingdommers who are coming Oliver's way and when they turn the corner to him, he grins at them and pretends he's cleaning his glasses, definitely not being a ghost to a woman who he hasn't spoken to in three days...

When they're gone, Oliver is pressed to the wall again, listening carefully.

"You're shitting me, right?"

Carol is furious.

"It's – it's a lot," Morgan tries. "He is, um, I don't know. It – It—"

"Stop it," she says softly. "Stop this. This place is a damn _circus_ – all of it. These people. This is make-believe. It's _playtime._ And you're just..."

She laughs at him and Oliver's chest aches.

"I can't do this."

 _Stab._

"I can't be here."

 _Stab!_

"Look, Carol, these people found—"

"No, I _can't,_ Morgan. I won't."

 _Stab, stab, stab!_

"I'll wait," she whispers. "And when you're not there to stop me, when nobody else is, I'll go."

She's just stabbing a dead corpse now, Oliver thought. He can't even feel it.

"You know I can't let you," Morgan tells her. "No. I'll—"

"You'll what? Tie me up like that wolf? Is that it?" she retorts. "It isn't up to you. It wasn't before in the basement, it wasn't at the library, and it isn't now. I don't give a shit if you think you've found the secret to life—"

"No, I don't," he is rushing, desperate. "I don't. I don't, and I haven't. And I know what I've started."

They are quiet, and Oliver slowly realises that Morgan hasn't told her yet. Carol notices something's up, too, because she's very quiet, so Morgan takes a deep breath...

"Oliver is here."

He's peeking, but when Oliver sees the world crash in around Carol's head he hides again and stays there.

"What?" she can barely ask. "What do you mean he's... How did... I thought... I thought it was just..." The day they got here, the way she looked at him in the fight with the walkers, she didn't know it was real.

"He hasn't told me much," Morgan explains. "We went looking for you; him, Rick and me. He and Rick went home, then, few hours later the boy must have snuck out and followed me, showed up at the library."

Carol is speechless.

"There seems to be a pattern with you two."

"What do you mean?" she gulps.

"The moment one of you shows up, the other one disappears again," Morgan says. It's an odd thing to say so Oliver frowns. Carol, too, when he peeks again. Morgan doesn't explain this time though. Instead, he says, "I won't let you die out there. That's what I won't do. That's what Oliver _can't_ do."

Oliver doesn't stay after that. He hears her say, "It doesn't matter what you do," before he's turned on his heel and left for the infirmary. She and Morgan get here a few minutes after him. Oliver's got his backpack on his shoulder and he tosses the empty chocolate foil he left for her in the trash. The Cherokee rose is wilting slightly; they only last a few days after being picked. Oliver wonders if it would have been kinder to have left it alone to grow.

He turns around to face them when they come in. Already, he knows this isn't going to go the way any of them want it to. Oliver could have spent the last three days planning this, preparing what he would say, and he tried to. But he gave up. Carol thinks he won't know how to handle seeing her again. He can see it in her face that she's waiting for the waterworks. He even thinks she's hoping he'll be angry at her...

"Hey, guys," Oliver grins, strolling past.

"Oliver," Morgan says, confused and stopping him by taking his elbow in his hand. Oliver smiles down at it, thinking about what might happen if he sinks his knife through them both. He waits a second for Morgan to let go. "Where are you going?"

"Oh." Oliver chuckles. Carol looks disturbed. He ignores her. "I'm staying at Ben's tonight. Probably will from here on out."

"Wait, what?" Morgan asks.

"Yeah. Later."

"Have you asked him?"

"Well," Oliver's eyes snap between them and he laughs, "I mean, no, but if I can't I'll just stay somewhere else."

"You don't have to."

It's Carol who says this. Immediately, Oliver's jaw grits and his smile disappears but he yanks it back on his face and forces it to stay. It does, so long as he doesn't look at her anymore.

"It's cool," Oliver explains to the window. He and everyone else hears the stress in his voice so he lowers it... "Doesn't matter what I do, right?"

He sees her shudder out the corner of his eye but he's watching directly as Morgan's face drops in horror, and then Oliver walks away from them both. He understands what Morgan meant about one of them always disappearing now. He thinks Carol understands now, too...

"Oliver..."

Her again. She's crying. The silent kind like she can't stop. Oliver doesn't turn around. He doesn't even stop walking. He leaves the building thinking he's become a pomegranate; 'sweet surrounded by bitter' and he decides in this moment that Carol's not going to get through to him anymore. She's not even going to try and neither is anybody else. Ever.

Too much trouble.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Town Called Malice_ by The Jam.

I miss being in his head and this makes me kind of sad, but I hope you still enjoy the story.

As you can see, Oliver's gone through some big personality changes recently. I hope it seems believable and I hope none of it comes across as offensive or too ambitious or just plain annoying. I've been reading up a lot (and just reading – blame _I'll Give You the Sun_ I'm still not over it) about coping mechanisms to stress and abandonment and all that heavy horrible stuff, and shutting himself inside himself is a really interesting and new way to write him for now. I'm super open to opinions. Just, for now, Oliver's arc won't be told from inside his head. He's not exactly letting anyone in right now and he's tired and is doing his best. But he'll be back telling his own story soon, I swear... somehow.

Lil' things:

1\. I don't know why it took me finishing writing this chapter to actually notice the stage/theatre/acting/pretending theme the show was using in it xD (you guys probably can tell that half of my crap on here usually ends up following themes out of pure accident *cough cough* smoke and Peter pan and stale food and closets and Carl constantly getting hit in the eyeball by strange things throughout the series etc. . . so I give them huge brownie points for that xD

2\. I used to look after a horse like Roan and I feel for Oliver so much. Some horses are complicated and grumpy and need kind treats and small quiet neck-rubs.

Also, about some of the new OCs of note. . .

 _Juni  
_ I don't exactly know what a pudgy longish frame looks like. I think he's of Hawaiian descent, with a little Native American and Caucasian in his family here and there, maybe possibly Asian somewhere, too, but honestly the image of a face with so many ethnicities in it is one that I've only ever really seen in my own face (I'm Caribbean/something else/Caucasian), so I will gladly and respectively leave his visual perception up to your own imagination. Other than that though, Juni has been in my head for a while so I thought I might as well put him somewhere finally.

 _Leviathan O'Donnell, aka. Young Thor  
_ Not the sharpest machete in the armoury. I also love that his name means 'big sea creature' because he's huge and sort of just swimming through life right now. Oh, also, I feel like nobody talks about him without just automatically using his full name, or at least _'Levi O'Donnell'_. I think it's a very cool name xD

 _Morayo Dimka, aka. Ray  
_ I keep thinking of Jaden Smith and I can't help it XD also he seems like a dick but idk I kinda he's got some stuff going on and I love him.

 _Isabelle  
_ Please respect her. I don't mean to make her sound bad or shameless because she actually is a really lovely girl. She just does boys favours sometimes. Regardless, she is not a new love interest. Also, I'm not sure what she looks like. She was kind of described so vaguely to show how disassociated Oliver was during the whole experience. Not that he didn't like it or he didn't want it, he just wasn't really all there. Depression is weird and I'm doing my best to write his xD plz be nice :3

None play huge rolls I just like them.

 **Preview: A hunting trip starts raising questions and Oliver's still facing the consequences of his fight this morning.**

As always,  
Happy reading.


	33. The Well, Part 2: Choir

**This Sorrowful Deity** Shiva would fucking destroy Lucille...

 **RHatch89** thank you.

 **yozza** ah. oops. dammit. Thank you ^.^ I like writing him like this.

 **The Flash Fanatic** You're welcome? I can't tell if this is sarcastic xD

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** ThankYouThankYouThankYou x

 **TheDarkerSide123** Shut up, scrub, you'll be okay xD Did you know Shakespeare invented the word elbow? And skim milk (:

 **johnjohn1970** Thank you so much!

 **Soulless Bilbo** They will.

* * *

 _I have an assignment due yesterday Jesus Rovia save me._

* * *

The garden is made of filing cabinets and tires lined up in rows. There's an irrigation system too that runs into the gutters alongside the stables. Oliver is writing in the mud, sitting outside Roan's stable. He's drawing inspiration from what he saw in Carol's notebook:

 _'Gov's guy_  
 _Termite 2?_  
 _Wolves 3_  
 _Mikey_  
 _'Chelle_  
 _Merope_

 _9'_

 _"I stopped counting when I hit double digits. That's right around the time I stopped feeling bad about it."_

Oliver has to lock Paula back in a cell by swiping a hand through the mud. Quietly, he writes his list out over again, then again, each time rubbing it away with his palm before restarting. He isn't sure if he should count Mary, which is why he put the question mark. He also isn't sure if he should add Mika. He didn't kill her with his own hands but it was his responsibility to keep her safe that day. Both of them. If he counted them, then it went up to eleven. Doesn't matter. Only it does. Has to. He's in control of it. He still feels bad for it... doesn't he?

Roan keeps sniffing at him, but Oliver has to ignore this otherwise he'll get bitten. In truth Oliver isn't sure if he's sitting directly under the door in the hope he _does_ get bitten. Either way, he's not moving or acknowledging Roan at all, so he's not getting bitten anyway. Oliver takes this as progress, and keeps on ignoring the horse and writing his list in quiet, which is why he doesn't notice Benjamin coming over until he says, "What's that?"

Oliver thrashes at the dirt, dodges teeth, then gets up and walks over to him. Ben just got done turning the flaxen horse out to pasture.

"Hey," Oliver says.

"Hey, Apple," Benjamin smiles, leaving the empty halter on a fence post. "What's up?"

"Can I stay at yours?"

Ben frowns, taken off guard. "Like, for tonight?"

"Err... for longer, if that's cool?" Oliver replies. "Just until I figure out where I'm staying."

"How come you aren't staying with your mom?"

"She's not my mom."

Ben frowns... "Okay."

For a second, Oliver can't think what to do, so he falls back to basics: grins. "Forget it, man, it's cool," he chirps. "I'll camp out here."

Benjamin laughs, but when Oliver walks away he makes a weird bleating sound. Oliver gives him a weird look. Ben clears his throat. "Wait, you _can't_ be serious?" he says. "You'll sleep outside?"

"Done it before," Oliver shrugs.

They both laugh this time, and then Ben slaps Oliver's shoulder and says, "Don't sweat it, Apple. You can sleep at mine for a few days. Help out around the place and stuff. It'll be like having another brother. My brother's gonna love it."

"Oh. Awesome."

They share a fist bump while Oliver pushes the gate open, walking backwards, and as he turns around he walks right into Ezekiel. Startled, Oliver checks for Shiva but she isn't here. Ezekiel doesn't bring her to the stables a lot, what with all the lame-zebra around.

"Benjamin, if you'd be so kind..." At Ezekiel's request, Benjamin gives his king and Oliver a few minutes to speak privately. Ezekiel tells Oliver, "Morgan has told me many favourable things about you. He is disappointed to hear you'd found yourself in a fight today."

Oliver keeps quiet; he's trying not to do that angsty teenage thing.

"He is very concerned about you, Oliver."

 _I do not care,_ Oliver thinks, but says, "I know. Sorry."

Ezekiel gives him this odd look then. He has before and it makes Oliver nervous because it's the look you give someone when you both have a secret together, but the thing is, Oliver doesn't know what their secret is...

Ezekiel tells him that he and Morgan agreed on the consequences of Oliver's behaviour. Momentarily, Oliver pictures medieval methods of punishment like stonings and getting burned at stake, like all those pictures in textbooks of people strung up-side down or pulled in two by horses, or fitted with open-bottom cages tied to their chests with a fire at the top so the rat inside has to bury through your chest to get out.

Ezekiel grins.

Oliver smiles back politely.

"Come, Oliver!" the man cheers. "Assist me and my men on an errand today. You have already shown that you are quite the connoisseur in hand-to-hand combat, have you not?"

"Just the one hand," Oliver says cleverly.

"Ha!" Ezekiel slaps his back. "A man with a good sense of humour is a highly-valued member of society within the realm. You and I will be friends, I am sure."

"Sounds great."

"Now!" Ezekiel cries. "Let us have you a weapon on your belt, and see what other skills you have hidden up your sleeve. I shall invite Benjamin along, too, since he needs all the practice he can get."

While Ezekiel does that, a guard, Richard – who Oliver thinks looks uncomfortably similar to the Governor, takes Oliver to the armoury. At a closer look, their armour kind of reminds Oliver of the sort he'd see in paint-ball fights or something, only, made to stop _real_ bullets instead —or at the very least a blade or spearhead. Regardless, Oliver declines wearing any. When he asks why he's not being given a gun, he's told they won't need them, "Yet." Richard has a very low, tired voice. Once set, he and Oliver go and meet Morgan, Ezekiel, Benjamin, Jerry, another woman called Diane and another man who doesn't introduce himself. Then, when they're all set, they get going.

Again, Shiva stays behind.

Oliver's not sure full-grown tigers like riding in trailers much anyway.

* * *

They're going hunting.

"Hunting what?"

"What was once captive to the farm now runs free in the city."

There's a word for this. _Circumvent_ ; to get around something with something else. The way Ezekiel circumvents is he avoids answering questions by giving too much information. It distracts people. Annoying politicians do it. Oliver's dad used to. Enid does it, too, a little; she just kind of goes at it far more gracefully. Oliver's sort of figured out that Ezekiel does it just because he knows how to. Still, even though Oliver knows this, and even though Morgan obviously does, too, they let it go.

The city is Rosslyn. On the way there, they drive over a bridge and can see the Washington Monument; little rotten figures wading in the water. Oliver thinks of that the day he and the others drove to Alexandria, going over a bypass similar to this one. One different turning was all it would've taken for them to have found The Kingdom instead. Another different turning and they could've just as easily wound up finding the Saviors, or the Hilltop, or an entirely _new_ group.

How so many people can be so close by and not even know it makes Oliver feel like an ant that's part of a colony it's never met before. The world is never quite as dead as anybody thinks it is. There's always something left. Someone else around with a heartbeat. Whether that heartbeat wants to kill, eat or rape you, though, is a _whole_ different ball game.

Rosslyn is like every city now; overgrown and wild. Despite Ezekiel's elusiveness, Oliver and Morgan soon learn they're hunting feral pigs. On foot, they chase them through the outskirts of the deserted city into a driveway of an old neglected motel. The pigs are snorting and squealing and their hunters are yelling and clapping their hands.

"Here! Come on!"

"Come on! Come on!"

"Come on!"

"Whoo!"

"Come on!"

"Turn! Turn!"

"Whoo, whoo!"

"Go now! Go now!"

Inside one motel room, Diane and Richard have already cleared a space for the trap, and when all pigs are inside, Oliver manages to comprehend the strung-up walker tied by its wrists to the ceiling fan before the door is slammed shut. He stares, disturbed, but then Ben grabs him and noogies him.

"Nice one, Apple!"

Laughing, Oliver shoves him off, snatching back his glasses because Ben had stolen them for a second.

"Well done, Richard," Ezekiel praises.

"It's just what we needed," he nods, holding a safety-stick —he'd used it on the walker. Richard looks sad today. The wrinkles along his forehead are all lining up and if he stands still for too long he starts to look like a folded seat; but one of those that are close to snapping.

"Why the walker?" Morgan asks. "We're herding them in. Why do you need bait?"

"Because I want their bellies full of rot," Richard says. "That's why."

Inward panic takes over Oliver's chest for a tiny second before his shoulders are grabbed. He startles, but sees it's Ben so relaxes. With a reassuring smile, Ben whispers in Oliver's ear, "The pigs aren't for us..."

* * *

Ten minutes later, eight fed pigs are all inside the truck trailer. Walkers'd heard all the shouting before, and while Oliver and Benjamin were on watch they saw them coming, so they came down from the garage roof and told everyone.

Ben looks nervous.

"They're nothing we can't handle," Oliver tells him. "Ben?"

He's sweating.

"We've got this, man," Oliver says.

"Yeah. Yeah, we got this."

This makes Oliver think of Patrick. He used to get nervous, like this, and Oliver would too but he would always be the one who told Patrick he could do it. He thinks of the day in the candy store, how it was him who looked for a way out, how Patrick panicked, and Oliver had to scream at him to get his ass moving to the window. Ben's like Pat; he needs someone to light a fire up his ass.

Ezekiel is watching the treeline across the courtyard closely, listening for the undead intruders.

"You shoot a machine gun in the woods, and nothing," Richard complains. "You only gotta _cough_ in the city, and—" He stops, because they're here now, stumbling through the brush.

"Diane," Ezekiel says, "retrieve the truck. We'll take our leave." She runs around the side of the building for the other vehicle they brought. One walker has spotted them. "Ben..."

He spins around, cheeks pale and damp.

"You're up," Ezekiel says. "Use the machete. Just as you and he have practiced."

"Yeah." Ben unsheathes, his shoulders bunched anxiously. "Like we practiced."

His charge is sudden and sloppy, and the blade sinks through collarbone and shoulder, missing skull. The walker is scaring him. When its chin touches his fingers, Ben almost lets go and falls back with it, but Jerry is there, knocking the corpse to the floor in one pull. Oliver's heart is pounding while Ezekiel steps forward and puts a boot on the corpse's shoulder. Ben avoids looking at anything while his king kneels before the walker. Oliver doesn't even blink. Hidden inside Ezekiel's cane, under the griffin, a sword is drawn. Oliver wants to do it himself. He doesn't remember ever _wanting_ to put a walker down. Doesn't matter. Ezekiel plunges it through the walker's face and the walker is still.

"Do not be troubled, Benjamin," Ezekiel says kindly, returning the machete. "Next time."

Just then, Diane returns and parks in the driveway. The man, who still hasn't given his name, gets in the other truck that the pigs are inside of and waits for Richard to join him.

"No one back home needs to know about this," he tells them before he goes.

"You mean the pigs – that they're eating the dead?" Morgan asks.

"Any of it."

Oliver knows they're hiding something. But he doesn't think about it much yet because the walkers are still coming and he doesn't know if they're going to take care of them or just leave. The latter, by the looks, which Oliver tries not to feel too disappointed by. But then there's a walker, out of nowhere, grabbing Benjamin and — and Morgan knocks its brains across the dirt, saving his life. He walks away and swings his staff around, checking for any others too close. Ben looks sick. Quickly, Oliver grabs his shoulder and drags him towards the truck.

"Come on, man."

They sit quickly and roughly with fidgety hands and rocking knees. Ben's horrified. After a second Oliver laughs, and Ben punches him.

"Sorry," Oliver says, wincing, "but this is good."

"W-what?"

"If you're scared, it means you're taking this seriously. It means you're trying not to die."

"You're not scared though," Benjamin says, breathless and wiping his forehead. Oliver gives him an empathetic look but grins widely to hide it. Ben frowns, but gets distracted when, outside, he sees Ezekiel raise his sword towards the dead. Sometimes, when Oliver watches Ezekiel be Ezekiel, he feels like he's seeing one of Nell's fics come to life. She would've fallen in love with Ezekiel.

"May we one day cease you all from this curse!" he bellows. Morgan climbs inside the truck. The squeeze is tight and uncomfortable but they all manage to make enough room for Ezekiel – that is, for whenever he decides to stop talking to dead people... "Till then," he tells them, "know that we live on in your place – full, festive, faithful, and _free!_ "

"Only halfway free," Richard says, like he's reminding him. Ezekiel says nothing, sheaths his sword, and climbs into the truck. Oliver doesn't like feeling so many knees crushed into such a small vicinity, so looks out the window to distract himself. They drive away. The pig truck pulls out of the adjacent driveway next to them. Richard and his companion are not looking at them while they drive right, the opposite way they came... Ben sees the confusion on Oliver's face and purses his lips. Morgan, too.

He asks, "Where are they going?"

Ezekiel says, "Somewhere else..."

* * *

Even back at The Kingdom, Oliver's has a suspicion that the pig hunting isn't going to be the _only_ consequence of his fight today, and he's right. He barely makes it out of the truck before Ezekiel breaks the news to him...

"I'd like you to join the choir, Oliver."

"...What?"

"The choir," is repeated. "I hear you have a rather impressive voice."

Oliver's eyes shoot Morgan in the stomach and he goes flying into the school building behind him, only he doesn't really. Morgan stays put, and Oliver smiles and holds back the, "Fuck joining some _choir!_ " and instead, he says, "Oh. Right. Um, I don't really sing though."

"Well, at some point, you must have."

Oliver thinks not, but then he thinks probably, most definitely, actually, because he sang and played guitar and uke in his bedroom all the time back home, and it's not like the walls were soundproof. Oliver shoots Morgan in the stomach with his eyes again but only Morgan feels it because everyone else thinks Oliver's still just smiling at him.

"Choir meet starts at three," Ezekiel says. It's two-fifty-seven; Oliver knows because he checks his watch. He wanted to finally throw the thing away, and he did the first day he got here, but... he kept the head. Had to. Juni's grandma, Ms. Hale, who has small fingers and long long curly grey hair, offered to sew it into a new watch yesterday, so now the watch head was the same but the handles were a thin, tie-up, braid design, and she tied it around his wrist for him so that it and his bracelet were bound together, too. Lizzie and Mika, except Oliver doesn't think about them anymore. Ms. Hale said she couldn't find another colour than dirty-magenta, but Oliver didn't mind.

"You shall arrive in time to join them," Ezekiel said. "I'm sure they would love to gain another member."

No.

Absolutely not.

"Cool," Oliver says, "thanks."

He leaves Ezekiel and Morgan alone to talk together and Benjamin shows him where the choir group are, which is essentially just a classroom in the main building.

"See you later, Apple."

"Yeah..."

For a few minutes, Oliver stands outside and wills God to strike the whole building down on fire, but he remembers that God stopped listening to him the day he sealed all of his other voices inside his head. None of them talk to Oliver anymore. Not even Patrick. Or if they do, Oliver slams them up quickly. Sometimes Oliver hears knocking; when he's alone and quiet and trying to sleep. The knocking will go on and on for hours, like someone's asking to speak with him, and sometimes Oliver can hear whispering, _him_ whispering, asking to be let out, or let in... but Oliver has to ignore it.

Choir is dumb. Oliver doesn't have time for this bullshit. He wants to go find Carol; aches to. He's hoping beyond hope she's still around. But then he's reminding himself he doesn't care, clenching his fist and pressing it into the door as hard as he can until the ache goes away again. Only he hears someone, pacing in front of the door on the other side. Oliver pushes but at the same time whoever's inside says, "Oh, screw this shit," and yanks the whole door open.

" _Gah!_ "

Oliver staggers and falls forward right into Morayo Dimka's stomach, and the two teenagers land in a graceless heap on the floor. A rough, moth-bitten, old-fashioned rug burns palms and elbows and knees. Oliver smells patchouli and clean laundry in whatever body part is pressed to his nose, and with a grunt, Ray shoves him off. Oliver jumps to his feet immediately, expecting a fist, but he's met with a peace sign... He looks at it, then up at Ray's face, then down at it again, then up at his face.

"Err..."

"Truce!" Ray mutters, like calming some wild horse. Which isn't that far off the mark by how skittish Oliver is. Again, Ray whispers, "Truce, man. Truce."

Very slowly, Oliver's fingers mimic and form the same sign without him telling them to, but he goes with it and says, "Truce," too.

Ray sighs with relief.

Oliver eases up, points, then asks, "So, you're in for choir, too?"

"Mom's making me, after this morning."

Oliver watches while Ray undoes his bun. Deadlocks flop in front of his eyes, and once he's readjusted the little purple hairband over his fingers, he ties it all up again.

"You?" Ray asks. "Your mom make y—"

"Ezekiel," Oliver says quickly, smiles wanly, "after this morning, too."

Ray made a _hm_ noise in understanding. He says, "Consider us the lucky ones, man. Leviathan's getting made to fix the goat-shelter."

"On his own?"

"Yup," Ray nods.

"Shit."

"It's cool, he's good at that kinda stuff." Ray puts an arm over Oliver's shoulder. "Glad you're here, man," he tells him, and Oliver blinks because this is news to him. He didn't get the memo that Ray isn't a _total_ asshole; apparently it's just a part-time occupation. "Now I don't gotta put up with this torture as the only guy from school."

"What difference does that make?" Oliver asks. He knows Ray was about to bail so his sudden change of mind is confusing.

"You know, someone to relate to."

Oliver snickers. "Sure, man."

Ray's taking him through a hallway with tall wooden walls and clean lino floors and polished cabinets with school photos and medals and trophies inside. On one wall is another quote:

 _'The pessimist looks down and hits his head._  
 _The optimist looks up and loses his footing._  
 _The realist looks forward and adjusts his path accordingly._  
 _\- K.E'_

Oliver is laughing his ass off. Laughing so hard Ray lets go of him. "What, man?"

"Ezekiel totally didn't say that!" Oliver almost yells. But he doesn't. He almost yells, "That's from a comic book!" But he doesn't. Instead Oliver settles his laughter and just says, "That's awesome. Oh, God, that's totally awesome."

Oliver knows what secret he and Ezekiel have together now. They're both bullshitting a bullshitter. He's on to Oliver and Oliver is _totally_ on to his ass now, too.

Lost, Ray scoffs at him and Oliver grins like a fool, then he slaps Ray's chest, beckons him to come with him, and they both go inside the wreck room. The choir's already singing. It's around six or seven people. Ray's right. He and Oliver are the only guys from school. There's another girl though, Lani, from their class who's Ray's age. Lani's eyes stick to Oliver for a second longer than necessary, and when Oliver catches her she smiles. She's short and curvy and has dyed caramel blonde curly hair that is up in a messy-pretty bun, darker roots starting to show.

The rest of choir are all adults and the instructor is a pregnant woman; Oliver tries not to think of Maggie because he's already decided he doesn't need to worry about her. She's fine. She just is.

The room has a white board filled with music; the kind with symbols. Oliver doesn't know how to read music but he wants to desperately, until he remembers not to want to, and instead scoffs at this whole situation. The choir is on one side of the room and on the other, where the board is, there are cushion seats, a table, and an easel with a kid's painting on it. In the corner, sat at the small table fiddling relentlessly with a calculator, is Juni, and his grandma sitting beside him.

He isn't wearing a dress anymore, and when Oliver looks at Ray a little accusingly, Ray actually looks sorry. Ms. Hale is talking to Juni in sign language and he talks back in between mashing buttons, and then there's this one moment. She seems to ask him if he wants her to play (she has a guitar on her lap: she is the _'guitarist whose talent brings tears to the eye'_ Ezekiel mentioned) and Juni signs yes – which looks like his fist is nodding, so Ms. Hale plays. She quiet enough it doesn't disturb the choir music, but since Juni is deaf anyway it doesn't really matter. Instead Juni listens with his fingers; placing them on the instrument's body. Oliver watches Juni put his head back, shut his eyes, and grin. When she stops playing, she holds out her fist, thumb up, and Juni holds out his, too, and they press; knuckle to knuckle and thumb-tip to thumb-tip. This, Oliver realises, is the equivalent of a hug to Juni.

The choir is still performing a song Oliver doesn't know, but the pregnant woman is guiding both him and Ray, who were sort of just stood awkwardly to the side, into the huddle of people, who are all harmonising while one man sings, so they go with it...

 _"When your rooster crows at the break of dawn,_  
 _look out your window, and I'll be gone._  
 _You're the reason I'm a-traveling on._  
 _Don't think twice, it's all right._

 _Well, I wish there was somethin' you would do or say,_  
 _to try and make me change my mind and stay._  
 _But we never did too much talking, anyway._  
 _But don't think twice, it's all right._

 _So long honey, baby._  
 _Where I'm bound, I can't tell._  
 _Goodbye is too good a word, babe,_  
 _so I'll just say, fare thee well._

 _I ain't saying you treated me unkind._  
 _You could've done better, but I don't mind._  
 _You just kind of wasted my precious time._  
 _But don't think twice, it's all right."_

The pregnant lady gives her praise and tips of criticism, but Oliver's drifted away into his head again. Music's weird. It does things to Oliver's head. Even choir music, apparently. Sometimes when Oliver listens to music the music listens back, and he'll start hearing it in a whole new way. He heard it then, too, in that song. It said:

 _Need_  
 _to_  
 _find_  
 _Carol._

Oliver's nodding.

Ray notices first. "Dude, you okay?"

It takes him a second, but Oliver manages to snap out of his stupor. He grins, but feels how much his face had to change for it.

"Oliver?"

"Yeah. Hey, back in a sec." He's squeezes past a few chatty choir members but stops when the instructor takes his elbow. Has to play it cool. Has to keep it together. "Uh, Ma'am, where's the bathroom in this place?"

She points out the door to the left, so Oliver goes, goes left, and when the door shuts he sprints back the other way, right, crashing out of the building.

* * *

In Oliver's search, he finds Shiva sunbathing on Ezekiel's balcony, and Morgan and Benjamin practicing Aikido on the gazebo. There's a man and his nephew tending to the goats, a couple kissing behind the gym hall, and a group of kids throwing dirt over the wall to see who's got the best arm. He even sees Isabelle, moping around the grounds. None of them see Oliver see this. None of them see him at all...

Oliver's still good at turning himself invisible.

He follows Carol like a ghost. He's in her head, too, he can just tell. Everything she does is covered in that _ick_ residue you get when you know you've broken somebody's heart. She steals a knife and some chocolate when two guards aren't looking, and Oliver follows her as she wheels herself all the way to the laundry lines. She turns on the waterworks for some tall dude with a heart bigger than his brain, and while his back it turned, she stuffs a clean set of clothes under her blanket. But that _ick_ is still there. She keeps looking over her shoulder in Oliver's direction, wherever he is. He barely dodges out of sight in time. It's like she knows he's here but won't admit it to herself. She told him once that she could turn invisible, and Oliver said that he could, too, because he _can_. But they've never been able to go completely invisible to each other...

Oliver thinks of Juni and his grandma. He thinks of Ezekiel and Shiva, or even Ezekiel and Jerry. Ray and Leviathan. Benjamin and his little brother, and even Benjamin and Morgan now. They aren't alone. But Oliver is. Oliver realises, without Carol, now, he doesn't have anyone. He knows that it's mostly his own fault, since he quite literally ran away from home, but still, everybody's meant to have somebody, right? Everybody's meant to have some person left who doesn't leave...

 _'Let No One Sit Alone_  
 _in the Kingdom._  
 _\- K.E'_

But maybe, Oliver was thinking... Maybe some people just have to be alone. Maybe some people _want_ to be alone. Does he? Does he really want to be _this_ alone? He can feel his staleness cracking apart, so he loads on another coat and replaces his smile-mask. He knows Carol is preparing to leave him, and he knows it's his fault. It doesn't matter what he tells her, or _doesn't_ tell her, like the song said. It's just the way it has to be. He realises, for so long he's been mistaking his cruelty for love. He was picking a rose that still needed to grow. She can't help the way she is and he can't either, so he pushes his glasses up his nose, takes one last long look at her, then walks away.

His eyes are wet and his head is down, so, for the second time today, Oliver walks right into Ezekiel.

"Eck!"

"Oliver."

He is silent, thoughts in his head sinking around him too fast to get back into character.

"I take it you didn't enjoy choir," Ezekiel says.

"Oh, yeah," Oliver struggles. "I was on my way back now, actually. Just, wanted to get some air."

"Yes." Ezekiel grins. "The same way our fair maiden, over there, was certainly not fooling when she predicted the chocolate would _'go bye-bye'_."

He saw, too. Oliver frowns defensively and at the same time thinks he might cry, almost does, but then he pulls on his costume and grins. "Did you like volume six of _The Tremendous Trio?_ " he asks cockily. "Or, was the wall in the wreck room just an uncanny coincidence?"

Then, no word of a lie, King Ezekiel blushes. He busts out laughing seconds later and Oliver almost leaps away from him until he realises he's only getting patted on his shoulder. Ezekiel pulls Oliver aside, out of earshot of Jerry and Richard, who both look stressed for some reason.

Quietly, Ezekiel says, "You, Oliver, never cease to impress me."

"I won't tell," Oliver explains, not smiling or grinning right now, "so long as you let her do this." For a second, he has to take a breath and hold it until he knows he won't break. "Alright?"

"What is she planning on doing?"

"She wants to leave," Oliver tells him. "She's wanted to leave for a long time now."

"Preposterous," Ezekiel laughs. "She's been here a mere two days."

"No," Oliver says softly, "no, it's not because of here. It's... It's me. She wants to leave me. She has to."

Ezekiel is very quiet then.

"She'll leave tonight," Oliver explains, completely sure of it, "like she was never here in the first place." He keeps pausing so he doesn't forget to breathe. "Morgan is going to try to look for her, but, he won't find her. Not this time."

"I fail to understand, Oliver," Ezekiel says, "you want her to go?"

Oliver is glaring down the tree beside them, forcing his eyes to stay dry...

"I don't want her to," he manages, leaving that part there because he can't go into it. It's too complicated. Instead, he twists up his face and says, "If you love someone, you have to let them be happy, and if that means letting them go away from you then you'll let them do that, because... you love them."

Ezekiel considers this for a pensive moment until he asks, "Then tell me, young warrior, what happens when the person you love and are losing is already a part of who you are?"

Oliver doesn't know why Ezekiel asks him this, but... he does, too. Ezekiel keeps a lot of secrets, Oliver thinks, and not just with him. Oliver thinks Ezekiel might have a secret with every person he's ever met, maybe even Shiva. Regardless, Oliver knows he and Carol are a part of each other; two people attached at all fifteen fingers by a string they can't see. He knows, and Ezekiel knows, too, that the moment it is cut, they're going to lose a piece of themselves along with it...

So then, what _does_ happen when the person you love and are losing is already a part of who you are?

"Then you gotta be someone else," Oliver answers. After a second, Ezekiel nods like he knows exactly what Oliver's talking about, and then he smiles, and Oliver smiles back, and their acts are up again and that conversation never happened.

"Come with me," Ezekiel tells him, louder so Jerry and Richard can hear. "We must find Morgan and Benjamin. I think I may have another task for us."

"Is Ben, like, Morgan's apprentice now?"

Ezekiel laughs. "I suppose so. Morgan has sworn to keep Benjamin safe – _alive_. Much like he has you."

Oliver keeps his opinion to himself while they go around the garden to the gazebo.

"Gentlemen," Ezekiel says as Benjamin pockets a small book that Morgan hands over to him. "Come with us, both of you. We have matters of import to attend to."

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Don't Think Twice It's All Right_.

I'VE BEEN WATCHING 'THE GET DOWN' AND YOU KNOW HOW I SAID MORAYO LOOKS LIKE JADEN SMITH IN MY HEAD WELL HE'S IN 'THE GET DOWN' AND I SWEAR THE WHOLE THOR THING WITH LEVIATHAN WAS A TOTAL COINCIDENCE (Dizzee, Jaden's character, meets a guy who's artist name is Thor) OMG I'M NOT EVEN MAD THEY ARE SO COOL AND PERFECT WTF I LOVE THAT SHOW GUYS YOU SHOULD WATCH IT ARGHH – I just saw it and woke up my flatmate squealing oops

P.S. I really, really, really miss writing Oliver talking to himself T.T

Happy reading.


	34. The Well, Part 3: Cherokee Rose

**johnjohn1970** thank you, Oliver loves you, too!

 **The Sorrowful Deity** They are not xDDD

 **RHatch89** they willl I wrote it and I dieeedddd

 **DampishPoet** this chapter shouldn't be as sad xD Noah's still with Tara. But yeah, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with him xD I'll have to see.

 **TheDarkerSide123** I like typing the numbers of your user ID because I just swipe my fingers across the keyboards 123 mmmmm 123 xDDDD

* * *

 **~ Happy Holidays ~**

Sorry this one took a little longer to get out. Thanks _TheDarkerSide123_ for the proof-reading help.

* * *

 _I'll meet you at the divide  
To break the spell  
A point where two worlds collide  
Yeah, we'll rebel_

 _And we run  
Until we break through_

 _If I get high enough  
If I get high enough  
Will I see you again?..._

In a deserted parking lot with Ezekiel, Morgan, Jerry, Benjamin, Diane, Richard and that other guy, Oliver is stood with the wind blowing gently through his fingers and hair. Morgan doesn't like the fact he was made to take a gun. Oliver does. A Thunder 9 semi-automatic is in his holster and he feels better. He'd prefer his Glock, but there was no ammo for it.

"The swine are slaughtered far from the Kingdom," Ezekiel explains, "lest their screams carry in the wind and invite questions."

Richard and his companion have strung up the tainted carcases inside the truck they'd used before. They all, now, are waiting for someone to come and collect them. But this isn't a trade.

Oliver has a hunch, and the hunch doesn't make him fee better at all. The hunch feels sticky and cold and familiar, and it gives him chills inside the healing scar on his shoulder-blade and mouth, but he doesn't voice his anxiety.

"What we are doing here is a secret I keep from my people," Ezekiel tells them. "Some see secrets as a privilege of ruling. But they are burdens. Not part of the reward. They are the cost."

Oliver has been staring at two pick-up trucks while they drive around the compound, and he sees Benjamin turn to stone while they pull up into the parking lot ahead of them, breaks squealing. Everyone else squares up, too, and watches four men and one woman get out. One man, sporting a rifle, stands back, while the others walk over slowly, passing an old, run-down car. They're fully armed with snarls planted across their faces.

Saviors.

Oliver knows it.

This was his hunch.

"Here, I was worried we were early," one man says. His goatee is groomed and his skin is tanned and his hair is brown and raked back by length and fingers. The dark sweater he wears is rolled up at the sleeves with damp patches around his neck and armpits, and he has a walkie talkie on his hip.

"Our arrangement is something I consider with the utmost seriousness," Ezekiel answers, hands rested up on his cane. "We will fulfil our obligations on time, every time."

"Yes, indeedy you do," the guy says, "and you will." He steps over to the pig-truck and sighs, lifting a finger. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven – I count eight, that's good! They look bigger than last time – that's good, too."

"They were well-fed," Richard says dryly. "I made sure of it."

Oliver likes Richard.

"We appreciate your hospitality," the Savior says. "Lucky for us, we brought two trucks. How about you, uh, help us load 'em up?"

Diane tilts her head to Oliver and Morgan, in a hushed tone, telling them, "They're part of another group. They call themselves—"

"We know who they are," Morgan grumbles.

The pigs are loaded into one of the Savior's trucks, and for a few minutes Ezekiel speaks quietly with the lead guy, who calls himself Gavin, about their next meet. Oliver stands with Ben. Ben's arms are crossed and Oliver stuffs his pockets when he can't cross his arms, too.

"Hey, asshole, how about a smile?" one guy says. He's the youngest Savior Oliver's ever seen so far: possibly only a few years older than him – pale skin and a patchy goatee and long brown hair past his shoulders. He's thin and lanky and tall, and his voice is high and wiry. He dips his head to Richard's height, pointing to the pigs. "This? This is nothing. We've been letting you off easy."

"You sure you don't have that backwards, kid?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

He turns, then swings around and goes for a punch, but Richard dodges and knocks the kid back with a fist across the chin. When he fights back, Richard traps him in a headlock and wrestles him to the ground. Guns are already up. The goblin in Oliver's chest sits in his throat, sewing a grimace across his lips.

"Cease this!" Ezekiel warns. "Lower your weapons. Richard, let him go."

He does, and the younger guy reels back into a coughing fit.

"This is not what we do," Ezekiel growls. His voice is so strong it carries into their bones like Shiva's roar. Like Carol's. The Savior takes no notice.

"Free shot?" he laughs breathlessly. "Oh, I love this shit!"

This punch sends Richard spinning back with a crack.

"Gavin, tell your man to stop," Ezekiel orders. Richard takes another punch, this time knocked onto his ass. "Gavin!" Another punch. Oliver's finger touches the trigger, but he stops himself pulling up. Finally, Gavin listens.

"Hey!" he grins. "Hey! The man said stop!"

The kid grabs Richard's armour collar. He's glaring back, blood trails running down his nose and mouth, dripping between his snarling teeth.

"And he's been good to us," Gavin adds seriously. "We've taken up more than enough of his time." Gavin whistles. The kid obeys, though, not before he turns his fist around and flips Richard off. He slap him, too, right across his cheek. Oliver's furious, exchanging uncomfortable looks with Benjamin while Ezekiel and Morgan help Richard up. The Saviors are leaving and as they do, Gavin tells them, "Same time next week, all right? It's produce week, so, _produce!_ You got the list – not one bit less. Otherwise, you know... he's gonna have to go first."

This is a trade to them, Oliver realises. A trade not in exchanging supplies with supplies, but a trade in exchanging supplies with keeping their lives. To the Saviors, this is fair. They drive away with the asshole kid oinking at them from the back. When Oliver tries to flip him off, Ben grabs his arm and yanks it down.

"You've encountered them before?" Ezekiel asks Morgan. "Their group?"

"Yeah," Morgan says, glancing at Oliver.

"The man you killed to save Carol – he was one of them, as well?"

"He was, yeah." Morgan squints. "Is that why you wanted us here? Because we can do it again if we had to?"

"No, Morgan. Quite the opposite, in fact," Ezekiel says, smiling. He speaks to Benjamin for a moment.

Jerry asks, "Kid, you really kill one of those people?" Oliver can't help the scowl on his face. He didn't know Morgan knew about it, and he sure as hell doesn't want to talk about it, let alone have anybody else talk about it. Jerry takes the hint.

"Come," Ezekiel says to everybody, "let us return home now."

* * *

It's supper.

Oliver's sitting with Morgan, Benjamin, and Henry in the lunch hall, eating off school lunch trays; the types with sections. In one is cotton-tail, then mashed potato, broccoli, an apple, a cup of water, a knife and fork, and a napkin. Oliver doesn't throw up after eating anymore so long as he eats all the sections separately and slowly and in order.

"Ben, you sure it's okay if Oliver stays with you and Henry?" Morgan asks. Oliver almost kicks him under the table, but settles on glaring at him over his glasses. Ben nods anyway.

"Yeah, I love this kid!" he says, and Oliver's chest bursts under his T-shirt a little. He knows Ben means it in a brotherly way, maybe not even that, but he doesn't care because it's the second time since before Carl woke up that anybody's said it to him at all. The other time was from Enid.

Behind them on the wall's another quote:

 _'The Dead are Alive. Lest not the Alive be Dead._  
 _\- K.E'_

Oliver's been thinking about it since he first saw it, but he still doesn't know what the last bit means. Not knowing frustrates him, like it did with the salt and the sugar and the carrot and the egg and the coffee. Henry kicks Oliver under the table as he gets up. Oliver startles.

"Sorry."

"It's fine," Oliver says; at least his head's back in the room again.

"Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey," Ben's saying. "Where you going, hmm?" Henry stops next to him and rolls his eyes. Like a brother mirror, Ben rolls his eyes, too. Oliver remembers having a brother mirror; sniffing and yawning and scratching his nose when Patrick would without even meaning to. He remembers one time when he and Patrick were little. Patrick could wiggle his ears and Oliver tried, too, but couldn't get it, so Oliver let his big brother spend weeks pulling and yanking his ears into cooperation.

Oliver still can't wiggle them.

"It's movie night tonight," Henry complains. "I want to get a good seat."

Isabelle's sitting across the hall from them. She already came over earlier to ask if Oliver was coming tonight. On the spot, he said yes, but managed to avoid mentioning any seating plans. Now he keepsspotting her looking at him, waiting for him to leave so she can follow and ask him to sit with her – this is the only time his slow eating habit has been helpful to him. But in truth, Oliver's paying more attention to the girl from choir – Lani. She's sitting one table over with Juni, who Oliver found out is her little brother. She has her hair down now so it sits in every curly direction along her back and shoulders, like her grandma's, but with colour. She's wearing dark russet-coloured lipstick and a pair of gold earrings – Oliver's pretty sure she's the last girl on earth who still puts so much effort into her appearance, but anyway, and _she's_ the one catching _him_ looking this time. She'll look over and smile and Oliver will look and keep looking until he's pretty sure they're just eye-screwing each other, like Mikey used to call it, until Morgan clears his throat. He's sat between them. Oliver stops, cringes, then keeps eating. Morgan's either incredulous or uncomfortable, Oliver can't tell. Regardless, he's already planning on sitting with Lani during the movie, somewhere nearer the back. He's going to wait for the sad bit (there's always a sad bit) and then he'll pull his arm over Lani's shoulder to comfort her and then they'll make out until the rolling credits, like people do in his books. Of course, he'll ask before he does this, and if she doesn't want to then he'll sit with Isabelle instead. Oliver knows this is sleazy and cold and selfish, but he's pushing away any part of him that still gives a shit.

"Right," Ben is saying to his brother, "but you're gonna clean your plate, though, first."

Henry sighs impatiently.

"Come on. That was the deal, Dutch." Benjamin has a lot of nicknames for people. His little brother grabs the last broccoli piece and stuffs it in his mouth, chewing melodramatically. Ben scoffs, says, "Yeah," sarcastically. "Wow. Good one, smart guy."

Morgan laughs quietly. Oliver was eye-screwing Lani again and snaps his eyes away because he thinks he's been caught. He hasn't; Morgan was laughing at the boys.

"All right, well, just be in bed by ten," Ron says, "not a minute later."

"But I can read?" Sam replies.

"Yes, you can read."

Ben. Henry. _Not_ Ron or Sam.

Oliver blinks a few times and, in his head, stuffs the latter two back into their cells, wrapping his fist against the bars to scare them.

"He's a good kid," Morgan tells Ben, still grinning.

"Yeah," he says, "he is. I only kind of know what I'm doing raising him. Ezekiel's been a big help."

Lani is getting up and taking her empty tray over to the kitchen with Juni. They're signing some conversation to each other that Oliver doesn't understand, but it must be funny because Lani laughs. When they leave, she glances at Oliver and motions her chin for him to join them when he's done. Oliver nods and waves, so she leaves. Oliver's eating faster now. He's worried it won't stay down but he's hormonal enough to overlook it. He's only half listening to Morgan and Ben's conversation.

"You seem close; you and the king."

"Yeah, he was, uh, pretty tight with my dad," Ben explains. "My father was a good fighter. One of the best in the Kingdom."

"How'd it happen?"

"It was about a year ago," Ben says. "Ezekiel sent his detachment out to clear out a building. There was too many wasted and not enough backup. Eight men didn't make it out. My father was one of 'em." Ben stutters a little. "But Ezekiel – he's a lot more careful now. He told me that it, uh, well..."

Oliver's about to leave when Ben suddenly slides over so that he's sitting opposite them both.

"He, uh, told me he was keeping his deal with that group quiet 'cause he thinks the people would wanna fight," he explains. "He says that even if we did, we wouldn't win – at least, not without losing people, maybe a lot of 'em."

This has perked Oliver's interest, actually. He's thinking of his and Carl's last conversation. He usually tries not to, but this time he recalls Carl talking about the Saviors, them both romanticised over killing them, and what Ben says now sends anxiety through Oliver's chest in waves; the big ones that drown surfers. Plus, after seeing how submissive Ezekiel was despite his side having more men today, Oliver's starting to wonder if the Saviors aren't as easy to scare as he thought.

"You don't want to fight?" Oliver asks.

"No," Ben says. Oliver frowns. "I – I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I know enough to know."

Morgan chuckles.

"Maybe you do," Ben tells them both. Oliver realises he's rubbing the scab on his lip and stops. Then he gets up.

"I'm gonna head to the movie."

"Oh, yeah. I'll come, too," Ben says, but he looks at Morgan so Oliver waits. "Hey, um, there was an inscription in the book. It was handwritten – about not killing. Is it yours?"

"It's not, no."

Oliver knows the book they're talking about. He's only ever caught glimpses; Morgan carries it everywhere. Oliver once asked if he could read it but Morgan said no, politely, so it's a surprise he's let Ben read it at all. Then again, Ben has a way of getting you to like him. Not even Oliver remembers not liking Ben – maybe the first few seconds before he introduced himself, but since then Oliver's liked Ben like birds like trees. Except, wait, no... Oliver doesn't spend any time sitting on Ben's branches – at all.

Quickly, Oliver has to hold in a laugh. Bad time. Ben's still talking: "'Cause, I also noticed you only put vegetables on your plate during dinner. And, I mean, you're teaching me Aikido, and if Aikido means not to kill, then that means that you're—"

"It's not about what I think," Morgan cuts him off. "People can..." He leans close, gentle and serious. "They can try and set you in the right direction, but they can't show you the way. You know, you got to find that for yourself, and I thought I had it. I did. But I'm — I'm just fumbling through. Sometimes, we change our minds..."

Ben looks at Morgan like he's hanging off every word. Ben does that, especially to Morgan Oliver notices. Oliver hears the words, too, but he keeps them out of his head, doesn't even look at Morgan. Oliver's had enough of listening to grown men speak of how to live a life when they hardly know how to live one themselves. He's sick of trying so hard and never getting anything back, so he crosses his arms and stops listening altogether.

"Well, hey, do you wanna catch movie night?" Ben asks Morgan.

"I can't," Morgan says. He gets up and looks at Oliver. "I, uh. I got to talk to Carol."

 _Screw you,_ Oliver thinks. _Screw you screw you screw you!_

"But thank you, Ben."

* * *

The movie is The Lion King and Oliver is sat next to Lani at the back of the room, cushions under them and the wall to their backs. Ben's on Oliver's other side, and Henry's next to him. Juni's next to Lani on her other side. Other kids are sat around the room, too. Leviathan, who has a big band-aid over his nose, has a laser light and keeps drawing shapes on the wall. Ben yelled at him a couple times until he eventually got so annoyed he just forced both Leviathan and Ray to sit right in front of him.

This whole situation frustrates Oliver. With everybody's proximity being so close and the room being both brighter and smaller than he'd pictured it, he knows this is going to be tricky. His and Lani's shoulders are touching, pressing, really, but he couldn't sit on her right side when they found their seats because Juni was already there, so Oliver can't try to hold her hand. But he can feel her anticipating something. She'll glance at him like she wants to say something and Oliver will look at her and smirk, but she'll look away again and watch the movie for a few minutes. As the movie goes on Oliver gets more restless, until finally, Simba and Nala _'feel the love tonight'_ and Oliver whispers, "Do you want to get out of here?" into Lani's ear.

She looks at him, surprised, then says, "But I'm watching The Lion King."

"But, don't you, uh, wanna..." He stops because Lani's laughing. His cheeks burn and he looks away, suddenly engrossed in Simba and Nala while they frolic across the Savannah planes together and Pumba and Timon get all sad about it. Lani goes quiet, and waits humanely until a few eyes around the room focus back on the movie again too, then bumps Oliver's shoulder to get his attention.

"You're a pretty confident guy," she whispers.

"Uh, kinda," he lies. In truth, his confidence is a drowning kitten; he's grabbing anything he can get his claws on. She looks him up and down curiously, gnawing on the corner of her lip and Oliver waits patiently for her to reconsider. She doesn't.

"Boy, I'm not gonna sleep with you," she whispers bluntly. "But we should hang out. Around here, having friends is better than having booty calls."

Oliver snickers even though he's disappointed. Still, he nods. He likes Lani, he realises, and as much as he'd like to get in her pants he also, admittedly, kind of wouldn't mind getting to know her.

"Plus," she whispers, "I'm, uh, kinda gay."

Quickly, Oliver holds back his grin, and wants to say, "Me, too," but he gets that anxious butterfly feeling like when he used to dare himself to tell his family over dinner. In his head, he'd say it: "I like boys, too," and then make a mad dash out of the room before they could react, but he never did it. Only then Lani is grinning and Oliver realises he really did say it this time. He stutters, checks nobody is looking, then nervously laughs and whispers, "Uh, kinda."

"Bi?"

Oliver takes a breath, then lets it out again and says, for the first time in his life, "Bi."

"I won't tell."

"Thanks."

"Thanks too," she whispers.

Oliver shrugs.

"No," she sighs, "no, I mean it. I never thanked you for sticking up for my brother today." Oliver suddenly realises that before in the canteen and in choir, she wasn't flirting at all. She was just being nice.

"It's whatever," he says.

After the movie ends, the kids that don't go home with their parents decide to stick around for a little while. Oliver, Lani, Ben, Henry, Ray and Leviathan are all fairly sprawled out together at the back of the room, talking. Lani's legs are draped over Oliver's lap and Ray's head's rested on Oliver's shoulder, of all places, and Leviathan is pretty much flat out across Ray's whole body. Oliver is leaning back into Ben's shins, who has Henry tucked under his arm. Juni is sat alone a few feet out of reach of anybody, fiddling with a rubix cube he brought. The cubes that had the red stickers have been peeled off; Lani said Juni doesn't touch anything red. Pink is fine. Orange, too. But red. Red is bad.

Oliver's still pretty pumped for Simba. He knows it's not real but it was still awesome enough that he gets that feeling like when he reads books he likes. He liked the movie because Simba got back home in the end, with his family and his soul-mate. It makes Oliver think of Alexandria. Sometimes he fantasises over going home, but he doesn't think he'll ever do it. Oliver doesn't think about why, only he does. He's doing it now; thinking about what he would do if he saw Carl again. He pictures the Stetson on his head and the flannel around his shoulders, floating towards him like a breeze, but Oliver's brain shuts down after that, like a frozen computer, too overwhelmed to process what would happen next.

"Oliver?"

He startles at Ray's voice, who is now shuffling away a little to let Oliver move; it seems he's learned from the last time Oliver behaved like this. Nonchalantly, Oliver taps Lani's kneecaps and she pulls them up to let him stand. Oliver can see Isabelle with her friends across the room and a stab of guilt sticks in his stomach. He pushes it away.

"Wanna hang out at mine?" Lani asks. "Guys? Grandma made pie." Lani told Oliver that both Ray and Leviathan apologised earlier today, so she nor Juni seem to have held a grudge, even though Juni still has a swollen lip.

"Sure," Ray says.

Leviathan groans yes.

"Um, not tonight," Oliver answers. He doesn't think he's going to get much sleep tonight. Carol is going to be running around all over the place in his head – Carl, too; unlocking cell doors and letting out all the voices, and Oliver's going to have to find and lock them all away behind them. He has to walk, or run, or do _something_ to keep the noise at bay. "Can we hang out tomorrow thought?"

Oliver's never initiated making plans to hang out with any of the kids here before. It takes him off guard. He actually means it. Not acting or performing or pretending.

"Totally," Lani says. Ray is nodding and Leviathan is rubbing his eyes tiredly, but shrugging. "Later, Oliver."

Oliver feels a grin wind across his face. A real grin. It makes his achy chest warm and fuzzy and he thinks he might cry, so he waves, says goodnight, and leaves the movie room with Ben and Henry.

"Hey, you not coming?" Ben asks when Oliver turns the other way from his house.

"No, not yet. I just gotta take a walk."

"You okay?"

"I don't know," Oliver wants to say, but he smiles and says, "Totally," instead.

"Alright, the door's unlocked. Just let yourself in. I'll leave you some sheets on the couch."

"Thanks."

"See you."

"Night, Oliver."

"Night, Henry."

* * *

Oliver makes several circuits around the whole kingdom first. In the distance, insects are chirping and farm animals are crooning, except one goat that sounds like it's choking on a frog – Oliver checks it, it's fine. He doesn't notice the boy in the enclosure until he says, "Goats are weird, huh?" and Oliver jumps out of his skin. He can't quite make out a face, just a Chinese accent he doesn't recognise. "I came to check on her, too," the accent says, nervous. "Billy is very weird."

"Billy?"

"The goat. Original, I know."

Oliver's thinking of another boy he knows who names livestock. He looks up, says, "You must like them all. Giving them names."

"It's sort of my job, since I look after them with Huan, my uncle," the young stranger says. Oliver sees dark hair. He still sounds nervous. "Huan Song?" Oliver remembers seeing them both around. This kid, Huan's nephew, is Joey Song or something. Still, Oliver isn't up for much talking right now so when Joey Song _or something_ asks, "You're new here, right?" Oliver just nods. Joey Song _or something_ also says, "I saw your fight, today. Nut shot was brutal." And then there's an awkward silence until he asks, "Did you get taught to fight, too?" He must've seen Ben's lessons with Morgan today as well. Oliver shakes his head no and makes himself smile, and when he doesn't say anything, Joey Song _or something_ says, "Well, you were pretty brave. Pretty cool... erm."

"Sorry for letting some of the goats out today."

Joey or something makes an _eh_ noise, and after another awkward silence, leaves, and Oliver, a little disorientated, goes the other way. For a while he makes an effort to keep out anybody else's sight, and the people who do see him are either the kids heading home from movie night or guards on duty, but they're all pretty laid back, so they just exchange waves and move on.

Oliver walks past the school buses four times. He wants to go inside, sit at the very back like last night, hurt himself until he can't use his right side anymore, but just as he reaches for the little _'open'_ button, someone calls out, "Little dude!" to him across the vegetable patch. It's Jerry.

Oliver has time to whisper, "Fuck me," under his breath before he turns and grins at the tall, wide, smiley man strolling towards him. "Hey, Jerry."

"What's happenin'?" he chirps happily.

"Nothing," Oliver says, "just out for a walk."

"Why you looking so bummed out?"

"I'm not."

He realises Jerry doesn't mean this very second, and that he must have seen him while he'd been circling the kingdom all this time. He didn't remember to keep smiling because he didn't think anybody was watching him.

"Is it a chick?" Jerry guesses. "It's gotta be a chick. No man walks at night like that unless it's over a chick."

"It's nothing," Oliver lies. "I'm just not sleeping very well."

Jerry makes a hmm noise, taking out of his pocked a small glass instrument. It looks like a funny bottle stopper, but it's hollow, and Jerry rubs the remaining bits of ash out of one end. "How was the flick?" Jerry asks, taking out a small box with what looks like dry broccoli inside. Oliver can smell what it is and his eyebrows come up.

"Yeah..." he answers. He's remembering what Ben told him, then looks at Jerry, hesitates, and says, "it was _stellar_."

"Far out!" Jerry grins.

He takes a seat by the vegetable patch on a bench, nodding his head while Oliver takes a seat next to him. Oliver tries not to be too obvious while he watches Jerry set the weed up for the bong, or, pipe, or... piece – he doesn't remember exactly what Patrick used to call them, but he remembers he once kept one at the back of his shelf. It was a little bigger though, and had a painted illuminate symbol on the side. One time their mom found it and threw it away, grounded Pat for a whole week. Oliver still remembers him, Jamie and Conner making a substitute out of an apple in the basement. Later, Jamie told Oliver not to tell when he found him emptying their fridge, and since Oliver was crushing hopelessly on him, he didn't.

Jerry's fingers are so large herbs sprinkle over his red pants. Sub-consciously, Oliver picks at a little that lands by his thigh.

"Want a hit?" Jerry asks then. "It's domestic, organic too. Grow it right here in the Kingdom – out of reach of the ankle biters though, duh."

Oliver thinks 'ankle biters' means 'walkers' but from the context he realises Jerry is talking about children.

"Oh. Yeah," he says, "uh, gnarly."

"Right on," Jerry grins, lighting it. He takes the first hit, and then the second. His mouth is stretched into a lazy smug grin and smoke falls between his teeth while he hands everything over to Oliver. Oliver ignores the smell and holds the glass and lighter in his palm, preparing to mimic what Jerry did, but he stops when he realises he needs two hands.

"Oh. Uh. I can't, um..." He smiles wanly. "I don't have a..."

"Right," Jerry says, then giggles when he realises he made a pun. Oliver rolls his eyes and keeps the piece steady to his lips while Jerry mans the lighter for him. He smokes similarly to how he smoked that cigarette this morning with Isabelle, but he must not do it right because it makes him cough the second it touches his throat. His coughs are guttural and messy, and Jerry pats his back slowly and laughs. "You gotta go steady, little dude. Or you just suck buds."

Oliver groans and coughs violently.

"Dig?" Jerry asks when he stops.

"What?"

"Do you dig?"

"Oh." Oliver realises _dig_ means _understand_ ; Patrick used to say it. "Uh. Yeah. Dig."

He tries again, holding the glass while Jerry lights. The herbs crackle softly and smoke fills the cylinder. Oliver inhales, slowly, and Jerry grins and takes the lighter back. Oliver sees the smoke disappear through his lips and when he puts the pipe down he doesn't know if he feels any different yet, except for how much he wants to cough, so he does. Jerry lets him take another hit, tells him to hold it for longer. He does. Doesn't cough this time, too. Still, Oliver's pretty sure it's not working. He doesn't complain, however, just hands it all back and sits and watches Jerry smoke, and at some point starts laughing at him, and then Oliver realises how good he feels. Really, _really_ good. He also realises how strangely the world is moving, too, like the way the leaves in the garden shudder softly in the breeze behind him, their veins lit up by a lamp on the stand behind them. The flame moves all sped up and slowed down at the same time when Oliver looks at that, too, and the detail. He doesn't know if things have always been this defined or if he's just never paid so much attention to it all. It makes him grin and giggle and say, "Whoa..." His body feels like it's buffering, or melting... _relaxing_. Colours are bright and loud, even in the night's quiet. He hears bats squeaking overhead and feels the earth orbiting the sun under his feet.

A moth is fluttering a few feet above his head and he looks up and tries to pet it. His hand's moving warp-slow-speed. Oliver still doesn't think he's high yet though, but then he wonders if he is and he just doesn't realise it, and then he wonders if Jerry can tell so he looks at him to check.

Jerry is humming a song and smoking more. The sound and smoke leaves his mouth all stretched and compressed in time, until, to Oliver, it feels like it takes ten years for Jerry to inhale real air again. He can't believe he didn't suffocate. Oliver's astounded, by everything, all of a sudden, and everything is beyond hilarious. When Jerry says, "Chiiiiiiillll," it makes Oliver's whole world laugh, and he keeps on laughing all slow and stretched and sped up and compressed while Jerry lets him have another turn. Oliver can barely keep his mouth still enough to keep the glass steady. His eyes are watering.

"Do you feel that though?" Oliver asks, using the bandage around his amp to wipe his face. Jerry laughs. Oliver's tongue feels completely in his mouth, and his glasses feel wholly on the bridge of his nose, which are feelings Oliver feels all the time, but, again, has never paid this much attention to. "It feels like..."

Oliver doesn't have the words. He feels like he's lost control but like he totally hasn't, too. He feels like he exists, completely. He knows he did before, obviously, sort of, but he thinks he just kind of likes it right now. Loves it. He feels absolutely lost, but totally found, too.

Oliver's squinting and Jerry says, "Yeah, man..." even though Oliver didn't finish his sentence. Oliver's leant back into the bench with his arms up and his hand holding onto his hair. He tucks his stump against his face and thinks that if he thinks hard enough about it, he can make it finally grow back, but his thoughts are uncoiling and tumbling around him too slowly and fastly and everythingly for him to keep a hold on them, so he puts his arms down and thinks of something else. He thinks of a lot of things. He thinks so much he's not sure he's even thinking anything at all, and then, finally, one thought floats past his face and he grabs onto it.

He's still laughing his ass off.

"Hey, Jerry?"

"Sup?"

"Can I tell you something?"

"Sure, little dude?"

Oliver doesn't know why Jerry always calls him this. He honestly isn't very little anymore. Not like he was a year ago; around the time he was still living in the prison. Now Oliver's as tall as Morgan and his shoulders are broad and his chest and arms and legs are sturdy and strong – nowhere near Leviathan O'Donnel level but still; not little. Though, compared to Jerry, Oliver guesses he is a pretty little dude.

Jerry thumps Oliver's shoulder to get his attention back from the tree trunk he's staring down. Jerry says, "Lay it on me," and Oliver takes this literally and picks up the pile of air in front of him, then places it over Jerry's big round stomach. Jerry crumples up laughing. Satisfied, Oliver laughs for a few minutes, too, then sits back.

"What was I saying?"

Jerry busts out laughing again. Jerry has a wheezy laugh. He claps his hands like a seal.

"Doesn't matter," Oliver giggles, "I got something else."

"Yeah, man?"

"Yeah."

Jerry waits.

"Shit," Oliver giggles. "I totally don't remember."

Jerry doubles forward cracking up and Oliver does, too. He sits on the floor. His thoughts listen to him better down here. He looks up to the night sky and stretches his arms out above his head to let all his thoughts collapse down on him, and after a moment, they do.

"I've killed a Savior."

Jerry sits forward then, squinting even though it's not bright. The sky is pitch black, but Oliver sees him by lantern light.

"It was, I don't know, almost a week ago. We heard about them from..." Oliver grins when he thinks about Jesus and his fluorescent orifices, but he's forgotten what he was saying again so he starts somewhere else. "We killed all of them, Jerry. They had us holed up in this slaughter house. Beat us and threatened to kill us and stuff, 'cause – 'cause we just got done killing a bunch of them." Oliver groans a cough and starts counting on his fingers, chuckling while he speaks. "Shot two. Fed one lady to the walkers. Another one – _man,_ she got her face crushed in so bad, and the rest, we burned alive _'on the Kill Floor'_." Oliver put on Paula's voice for that, or rather, he put on _Carol's_ Paula's voice.

"Whoa," Jerry says, "That's heavy."

" _So_ heavy," Oliver concurs, and he's laughing again. Actually, Oliver's not sure he's stopped laughing at all. He's worried he never will, which makes him laugh even more, and then he whispers loudly, "I can't eat pork anymore, Jerry."

Jerry giggles. His giggle, unlike his wheezy laugh, is low and rumbly and Oliver has to hold onto the bench seat so he doesn't get blown away by it. He gets an adrenaline rush and says, "Oh, jeez," and Jerry laughs even more.

" _Man,_ kid," he growls, "you're baked."

" _So_ baked," Oliver agrees. He watches smoke leave through Jerry's wide, chubby, grinning mouth. Finished now, Jerry tips the piece up-side down and scrapes the ash out with his pinkie, then puts it away in his pocket with the lighter and the tin box.

Oliver's starting to think about food now.

He stands up after however long it takes to mentally undress a grilled cheese sandwich – in his head it has tomatoes in it, and chicken, and crazy cheese and regular cheese and M&M's. There's ranch sauce and potato chips and red peppers and ham, peanut butter, strawberry jelly, oh, _God,_ and more crazy cheese. Oliver's swallows so he doesn't drool. Stood up, he's steadier than he thought he would be. He had it in his head that if he was ever high, he would hardly be able to walk, like that time he was drunk and Carol slapped him —he makes a groany noise to push the memory away— but on the mornings Pat would come home high, Oliver's pretty sure he could only hardly walk because it wasn't only weed he'd been taking. To test his own balance, Oliver stretches his arms and hops on one foot for a few seconds. Jerry laughs even though Oliver doesn't fall over.

"Thanks for the drugs, sir."

This is a sentence Oliver never thought he would say. He also thinks he probably sounded lame, like he maybe should have called it _weed_ or _grass_ or... _maui wowie_? – Oliver doesn't have a clue.

"Totally," Jerry says anyway, holding up two fingers. "Deuces."

Oliver laughs and puts two fingers up, too, telling him, "Deuces," even though he doesn't know what it means. Patrick never once said that. He turns and walks back towards the infirmary, still giggling enough he has to wipe his eyes occasionally. When he gets inside Carol's room, he realises he's not sleeping here anymore, so, as quietly as he can – which really isn't all that quiet, he tiptoes back out of the infirmary. Nobody is in here, but Oliver doesn't fully notice this. Just because he can't see or hear anybody doesn't mean they aren't still watching. He's freaking himself out. Ben's place isn't far away. Only then Oliver starts to worry that Ben'll realise he's high, and despite it being Ben who told him about Jerry's etiquette anyway, Oliver still thinks he'll get into trouble. He's terrified, actually.

He spends a while pacing up and down the outdoor corridor, startling at every sound, hiding against walls or inside doorways if any are too loud or sudden. That damned goat with the weird froggy bleat is driving him insane. But it's never anything to actually be scared of, even though Oliver swears it is, even though he knows it's not, even though thinking like this makes him nauseous. He thinks he's going to die. He tells himself he is, somehow.

After several long minutes of sitting on the step outside the theatre rocking back and forth with his head bowed in his arms between his knees, Oliver finally gets up and goes back to Jerry. Only, when he gets to the vegetable patch, it's not just Jerry who's here. All at once Ezekiel and Carol are walking out of the recreation garden enclosure together and Oliver is screwed. Totally screwed. He forces nonchalance and tries to calm down. Jerry looks anxious, but only now that Oliver's here. Carol looks suspicious, and overwhelmed, and something else Oliver doesn't recognise, and she's about to say something but Ezekiel speaks...

"Fair maiden," he says, bowing slightly in her direction, "with this, er, _convenience,_ " — _'this, er, convenience'_ being _'Oliver's rather untimely (and squinty) entrance'_ — "I think it best if you'd excuse us. I'd like to explain to Oliver the significance of our discussion tonight."

Carol nods, and her eyes flitter to Oliver for a second, watching him, and he's watching her and trying not to feel like something really bad is about to happen but he's shaking and wishing she would help him and hold him and tell him everything will be alright.

"Is that – Can I smell – Oliver, are you high?"

"Yes," he says, "very high. Very very high."

Ezekiel stutters.

"I think I'm having a mild heart attack," Oliver tells the space of air in front of him, hand to sternum. Jerry slaps him on the back and he flinches.

"You're not dying, little dude."

A very nervous and angry and apprehensive series of looks are exchanged between the three adults. Carol is arguing. Jerry is apologising. Ezekiel is circumventing. Oliver is still convinced he's going to get hit by lighting or a meteorite or a sudden freak hail shower. Finally, Ezekiel is able to defuse the situation and Carol is calm enough to nod again, looking at Jerry like she's trying to resist urge to castrate him, then, after staring at Oliver's face (a face filled with arched eyebrows and twitches), she tells him, "It's gonna be okay, Oliver," and then tells Ezekiel, "Look after him," and walks away.

Oliver can't make sense of what's going on. He's still nodding to Carol even though she's gone. He startles when Ezekiel touches his shoulder.

"Settle, young man," the king coos, then turns to Jerry and frowns disapprovingly. "Jerry, your recreational habits evade my favour but I allow you to indulge in them anyway. You have proven your benevolence to me, and I respect that. All I ask in return is that you not influence others to partake."

Oliver's anxiety is overridden by all of the funny words and he giggles enough that Ezekiel's hand falls off of his shoulder, or maybe he's just still shaking that hard. Jerry dips his head like a scolded dog.

"Where's Shiva?" Oliver asks.

"Resting."

"Aw," Oliver pouts.

"Oliver," Ezekiel says next, "come with me, if you would be so kind. I trust you are coherent enough to understand me, correct?"

"Correct, sir," Oliver answers. He goes to sit but shoots up again. " _King._ Sorry." He starts laughing, pacing. "Oh, crap, hold on. I'm so not even here right now." Ezekiel groans exasperatedly and leans against the wall.

"Gentlemen," he says, "this may be a _long_ night."

* * *

The next morning, Oliver, Morgan and Carol are all riding away from the Kingdom. They keep the sun to their left and take their horses three miles south, following the arrows in trees and sign posts that Morgan left. The stretch of road they're on is long and covered in leaves and dirt, and a dead walker is sprawled across the front lawn with a graveyard beside it.

"You're sure this is what you want, right?" Morgan asks.

"I am," Carol answers.

They all halt on the road outside of a small house. It is their destination. There's a white rusty fence all the way around the property and a mail box with the flag up and an arrow pointing the way to Alexandria carved into the post; another sign Morgan left.

Oliver wasn't going to come. It took all night for him to come around to this idea. Ezekiel eventually took him back to Ben's when Oliver kept complaining about how hungry he was, so Ben let him eat, a lot, and while Oliver fed his munchies, Ezekiel explained everything. He explained that Oliver was right, Carol _was_ going to leave the Kingdom, but she would live nearby. Oliver didn't take it well. He wanted to throw the coffee table across the room. He wanted to run out of the front gate and keep running, but he was so stoned he just curled up on the couch and cried for a while. It was harder to stop crying than usual. Ezekiel and Benjamin tried to console him but Oliver didn't stop, and at one point, when he found himself in the bathroom, he decided to lock the door and wouldn't come out. Ezekiel had to go get Morgan. They could all hear Oliver inside, rummaging through cupboards and rattling pill bottles. Morgan broke the door down. Turns out Oliver was just neatening everything, but still, he was a mess; talking to himself and ignoring Morgan while he tried to coax the boy out. Finally, though, Oliver stopped organising the medicine cupboard because Morgan hugged him, and Oliver stood there, with these two strong arms wrapped around his shoulders and the kind of coos in his ear his own father never gave him, so Oliver turned around and clung to Morgan's chest and cried until he was empty. Oliver told him everything. More than he meant to. He started all the way back from Lizzie and Mika. After a long time, when it was almost dawn, Oliver passed out on the bathroom floor with a blanket over his front and they were all able to get a few hours of sleep before morning.

Oliver doesn't know how Ezekiel did it; convinced Carol to stay and not stay. He thinks it's because of Ezekiel's many secrets. He thinks that it's because Ezekiel told her about them all, and he thinks it worked because, unlike her and Oliver, Ezekiel is using his smile-mask for good, to give hope, to make people feel good and in turn it makes him feel good, too.

This morning, Oliver kept saying, "I don't care." He thought if he said it enough, he would eventually believe it. "If you don't care," Morgan told him, "you won't come with us." And then Morgan left and met Carol at the infirmary. It took Oliver counting to four about thirty times with his fingers before he ran across the kingdom and tacked up one of the horses, too. He rode it out in time to meet them half a mile down the road, and now he's here, sat in the saddle of a chestnut gelding. Carol is on Ben's horse; the flaxen, and Morgan is on the bay one that was there the day they were all found.

The three of them stare at the property.

Oliver hasn't said a word, not since this morning. On the journey here, Carol rode beside him and eventually reached out and touched his hand, and eventually, Oliver twisted his palm around to hold onto her hand, too, and for the first time in a long time and for a reason he didn't try to think too hard over, he told himself that things were going to get better.

"It's up to you," Morgan tells her. "It should have always been up to you."

He climbs down, drops his staff by the mail box, and walks around to help Carol dismount. Oliver stays in the saddle for a moment, but gets down when Carol walks around to him. She hugs him once and they hold on to each other for a few seconds until she steps back to look at him. Oliver's heart is breaking, but he knows this is the best she can do. She's replanting herself. All this time Oliver was blaming himself for picking her Cherokee rose, but it wasn't him. It wasn't. The whole world was wilting her. But now, finally, maybe she can grow.

"Okay?" Morgan asks. Carol nods, flipping reins over her horse's head and exchanging them for the backpack on his shoulder.

"Got it," she says, patting her horse's nose. The flaxen whinnies softly.

"Stay there," Morgan tells it. It shakes its head and snorts. Oliver walks around it, following Morgan and Carol towards the gate. Aside from the visible break in her own chest, Carol looks excited to be here. _"She's embracing the contradiction,"_ Ezekiel explained. _"She's finding the sweet beneath the bitter. She's going away without going away."_

"It's good we're here," she says.

"How's that?" Morgan asks her curiously.

"Ten more minutes, and I might start to regret all the times I tried to shoot and stab you," she says.

Morgan grins like he thinks she's the most fascinating creature in the universe because he does. He tells her, "I think you're my favourite person I ever knocked out. Definitely top two or three."

Carol chuckles, then reaches down to grab his staff from the ground. But she walks over to Oliver. She hesitates at first, and so does he, but then they collide together and this hug is a lot tighter and it lasts a lot longer than the previous one. Oliver feels his head spinning and his chest swelling and then he does one of the easiest things he's ever done in his life. He puts his mouth to her ear and tells her...

"I love you."

He can feel here face press into the crook of his neck, and he lets out a long breath while she squeezes his chest even harder.

"I love you," she tells him. Oliver can feel it. That calm and warm wave washing over him. "I love you so much." They pull away and Carol holds his cheeks in her hands while he cries, wiping his tears away for him when he doesn't stop. He's sad, but he understands, so she kisses his forehead and Oliver pulls himself together again in time for her to step away.

"Take care of yourself," Morgan tells her.

"I will," she sniffs, wiping her eyes.

"Do you promise?" he asks.

"Always watching, always ready, remember?"

"I do."

"Okay."

She lets them both mount up again before she hands Morgan back his staff, and then she enters her new home and shuts the gate behind her. Morgan and Oliver leave back for the Kingdom, though not before Morgan uses his staff to put down the red flag on the mail box, because there is nothing to worry about here. Carol is safe and she is going to be okay, and that's enough right now.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _If I get High_ by Nothing But Thieves.

Disclaimer: I do not encourage smoking weed, neither do I have a problem with people who do smoke it. Can you tell I've never even smoked it before? Well, all you vague fuckers who smoke it but don't tell us poor fucks what it's like are to blame. Writing this was HARD.

 **Preview: Back in Alexandria**

As always,  
Happy reading.


	35. Service: Scrambled Eggs

**RHatch89** thanks, lovely!

 **The Sorrowful Deity** Really? xD Thank you, man!

 **Rolochan** Hello! Ah! It's good to hear from you again! He is healing! Yes, he's just picking up a few slightly problematic habits along the way xS and yeah, you'll see the difference between how often the boys think of each other. I don't think Oliver isn't thinking about Carl a lot out of not caring for him, but rather because when he does think about him he hurts too much. But yeah, there's a lot of beef there now, built up since Carl woke up, really. They both want the same thing but Oliver's afraid of losing people and Carl's taken a long time to figure out his feelings. Enid, too, has her own stuff going on, which you'll read soon if you choose to ^.^ also holy shit you read this before watching!? I'm sorry if some parts don't make sense. I've taken some artistic licence... so, some things may be a little different when you watch it. (For instance, Jerry is not a stoner in the show as far as I'm aware, neither is Roan alive, and Carol cries a lot less in the show, too xD) And yeah, God, the whole Carol/Morgan/Oliver arc really messes with my head sometimes. I love Carol unconditionally but it's only writing this that I've become aware of how completely unfit she is to care for a child right now in her state of mind. She loves Oliver, but she's so scared of losing him, too. I cant even imagine how guilty she must feel, but I've been on Oliver's end of this spectrum in this sort of situation, and I can tell you, parent figures leaving you behind is traumatising. So yeah writing that's been pretty difficult. And yep, Oliver's bisexual. I'm not sure what Carl identifies as in this story. Right now he's pretty "Olliesexual" xD (amazing pun)but I mean he might still be attracted to other girls or guys or whatever, idk, we'll see. Your sis actually has recommended Falling Skies to me over PM, but I haven't yet gotten around to it. I intend to, though! A boy crushing on him? Yeah, uh, about that... so there has been a little foreshadowing events: a face Oliver's been seeing around but hasn't given much thought to yet :3 oh dear, I may regret everything. And finally, do I ever get bored? Nope. Not yet. I write this when I'm avoiding life and OH BOY there is a lot of that right now x,D And thanks for checking out my other stuff! I want to keep going with them and I will soon but this story will always have a special prioritised place in my heart xD it's gotten me through a lot of stuff and things. Thanks for the review! Good luck in uni!

 **The Flash Fanatic** xD he is

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** I have to make a concerted effort not to write "Ben and Jerry" in fear people are going to read it as the ice cream -_- but yes I love them all, too!

 **DampishPoet** BOY WATCH YOUR MOUTH FIRST IT WAS THAT CALIVER SMUT FIC AND NOW THIS! I'LL SET BEAN ON YOU! And yes low-key Levi and Ray are secretly making out behind every scene duh and LANI ughhhhhhhhhhhhh I love her, too. And yeah, Isabelle will have her happy ending more or less. And honestly, I haven't, I'm too awkward to ask anybody for weed xD someone asked me if i wanted to share his at a party a few weeks ago and I was like "Maaaahhhh meeeehhh nooo i don't knoww youuuu maybe another time whennn wee''vveee tallkkeeed anndd I knnoww youuu bebeettteerrr bbyyyeee." - legit it went like this I swear.

* * *

 _A/N: Honestly not sure how everyone's going to respond to the next few chapters. I'm trying to make sure I don't drag them out. Caliver's been separated for long enough now xD_

* * *

 **~Enid~**

* * *

Eggs are my speciality, but not a lot of people know this about me. I mean, I don't advertise my skills. People know me as the quiet girl. The sneaky girl. _Elusive Enid._ But it's eggs. With eggs, I am superior. Omelettes, scrambled, fried, poached, basted, hard boiled, soft boiled, sunny side up, sunny side over. Name it, I do it.

This morning: scrambled.

Simple, unimpressive, but that's the price you have to pay when an angry mob of mud-munching Saviors have taken claim of half your communities' supplies. Once the eggs are done, and once I've fed Bean and Scab – who's already doubled in size and been identified as male, I take the meal and two of those little restaurant ketchup packets over to 101. Bean accompanies me.

I pass Michonne on her way out. She has a duffle bag over her shoulder and her katana on her back. She touches my wrist as I pass her. I just say, "Good luck," and she says, "You, too."

I get the feeling both of us will need it.

Rick is inside, coming downstairs with Judith.

"Hey."

"Enid," is all he says. Rick doesn't say a lot anymore.

"He upstairs?"

Rick just says, "Haven't heard anything," and pets Bean. I head up to find the boy I'm looking for. Only his bedroom is empty, again. The bed is made and his things are tidy and neat like usual, except his desk, which is gathering dust; an unfinished drawing of Denise that was started last week is left neglected under a pencil. He drew her sat on the clinic floor, reading _War and Peace_. Carl's got a very distinct style when he draws. His drawings look rushed and scruffy and messy, like he's always got somewhere to be soon, like he's just got to get it finished before he leaves.

I keep waiting for him to tell me where he's going.

I leave the house and go next door. Bean flies straight upstairs. Nobody lives here anymore. Everyone who did is either gone or dead or kidnapped. But this house still has a housekeeper, apparently. One coping mechanism of grief is to tidy, I've realised. Not me, though. I hate cleaning. I prefer to cope by cooking eggs. Speaking of, I'm worried they're going cold so I put them in the microwave for two minutes. I wait in the kitchen and the ding is loud. He knows I'm here anyway. I've found it's best to give him a few minutes before I go to see him. The bowl burns my fingers so I use a dish towel, then head upstairs, humming _More Than a Feeling_ as I go. Outside Oliver's room, I knock, wait a few seconds, then enter.

"Brought eggs..." Carl doesn't even look up. He's laid along the bed reading a book with Bean stretched across his shins. I add, "and Ketchup."

Carl shrugs.

I try not to feel offended.

"Shouldn't waste," he tells the page.

"It's not waste."

He doesn't say anything.

"Come on," I whisper, smiling and holding the bowl out proudly while I find a space on the bed. "They're scrambled." Carl doesn't look up. I frown and say, very flatly, "If you don't eat them, Bean will."

With a sigh, Carl takes the bowl. I smile again, sitting back against the headboard while he sits forward, legs crossed, and stuffs his face. Bean slumps to the floor and lies on his back. Carl stops eating after a second, then looks at me over his shoulder, frowning through his fringe.

"Did you eat?"

"Yeah," I tell him. "Had the other half."

Satisfied, Carl turns away again and finishes the bowl. He sets it aside on the bedside table and sits back again, shoulder to shoulder with me, and we are silent for a long time. He reads a comic while I look at the wall opposite Oliver's bed, a whole section filled with photos and post-it notes and notebook pages he's collected and pinned up. His bookshelf is full, as is the CD rack next to it.

Oliver didn't take much when he left. Nothing physically, at least. But there's definitely something missing now.

"Was Michonne home?"

"No," I answer. Carl's been wearing Oliver's clothes. Today it's his pale blue flannel and his jeans. The T-shirt's Carl's though, and the boots by the door. Carl knows the question I'm not asking, so I don't need to say anything aloud for him to answer it.

"She didn't find anything else yesterday," he explains. "She said she went back to the barn, tried to follow the tracks, but..."

The trail in his voice is messy and awkward and that weird mix of hopeless and optimistic all at once. It makes me feel sorry for him, but I don't make it obvious or he'd mentally decapitate me. Thing is, yes, Michonne's been looking for Oliver, first day she went looking she even found his car with the message:

 _'Got my hat._  
 _Didn't get me.'_

But I have this secret —one I haven't even told Carl. It's that Michonne stopped looking after that. She had to. I overheard her talking to Rick about it, last night. It was late. Carl was asleep upstairs in his room (for one of the first times since he learned Oliver was gone) and I woke up to get a glass of water. I wasn't asked to sleep over, I just wasn't asked to leave. They were both downstairs in the kitchen. It sounded like Michonne had only just gotten home, which was late for her.

"His tracks went to a town, a library," she said. "Inside there was some abandoned shelter. People'd been living there for a little while. But their bodies were outside. Fresh. Only a few days old maybe."

My blood went cold.

"I checked," she said, "every one, but none were him. But I think he found people. There were horse tracks further out, but I couldn't find any more of his."

"Where did the tracks go?" Rick asked.

Michonne sighed. "I followed them for fifteen miles before I lost them, and then I just kept walking. But it was getting late. I had to come back." The Saviors are coming back in a few days. Stress to find enough for them is eating away at everyone.

"There's so much goin' on," Rick said. "I need everyone I can get helpin'."

"I know," Michonne whispered, "we have to prepare for the Saviors. I know."

"It just..." Rick sounded like he was going to cry. "It feels like the last time, that house, those men. It feels like we're leavin' him behind again." And then Rick really was crying. I'd never heard him cry before. He said, "Is that what we're doin'? I can't – I can't do that again."

I heard them hug. It was the rough and desperate kind of hug you never tell anybody about. I knew how Rick felt. I've done the same thing, more or less. Sometimes I feel so guilty about what happened to Nell and her sister that I can't even look in the mirror. I know that they robbed us, slashed our tires and in turn caused my parents to die, but Nell and Drippy only did it because of me, because I'd left them the first time I drove by them and their dad. If it weren't for my mistake, my selfishness, Nell's family might still be alive.

"You're not," Michonne consoled him. "This isn't on you. I think Oliver's _alive_. He's smart. He's done it before. He would've found Morgan, and they're finding Carol. We don't have a choice in how long it takes. This is how we find him. This is how we find all of them. We deal with the Saviors, and _then_ we get time to look. That's how we do this."

Right now, I look at Carl again, feeling guilty. Carl keeps reading. I decide to distract myself.

"You know, the other day I saw Michonne up on the guard post," I tell him. "She was just flipping her katana around with one hand, spinning it all over the place, like – like she didn't even realise she was doing it. She wasn't even looking, just staring out on the road. It was going so fast, like the blades on a helicopter. And – And _God,_ I couldn't believe she kept all her fingers." I scoff and shake my head in awe. "I think she's so cool."

Carl doesn't even look up when he mumbles, "I know, Enid," to the page he's on. I sigh, also blush, but mostly sigh, because as true (and embarrassing) as what just came out of my mouth is, it doesn't make the fact that Michonne still hasn't found Oliver any easier to swallow.

"We need Daryl," I confess.

Carl dips his head and puts the comic down, speaking very soft, "We need a lot of things right now."

I think Carl knows – the secret. I think he knows nobody is looking anymore, and, a lot of the time, I think he's furious for it, about everything; what happened, what could have happened, what didn't happen... But he doesn't say so, ever. He's never even showed it. He's been helping out around the place, stocking, distracting himself, sleeping here most of the time, so when he looks back to Tokyo Ghoul without saying anything, I know enough to keep quiet now, too.

* * *

I must fall asleep before long. That's also what I do to cope. Sleep. Carl cleans the second house and cries in secret and I cook eggs and sleep, _anywhere_ – seriously, I'm like Scab. Now though, I'm waking up. My heads in Carl's lap. His back's against the headboard and Bean is sitting over under the window, poking his nose through the gap made by the dictionary. There's a draft and I shiver.

"You awake?" Carl asks quietly. His comic is lying closed by his feet. I don't know how long he's been sitting here do nothing so he wouldn't disturb me.

I sit up, mumble, "Yeah. Sorry."

He shuffles off the bed, says, "Gonna walk Bean," which is something he does a lot lately. But only Bean. Nobody else goes with him, not even Judith. Once they're gone I find Oliver's pillow and bury my face in it, and then I must fall asleep again because I dream of the Wolves only they're back and we're the pigs. They bang on our gates and tell us, _"Little pig, little pig! Let. Me. In."_ And when I lift my head, I feel heavy and groggy and tired, but something's burst into the house, suddenly and loudly stomping up the staircase fast enough I only have time to twist around and watch Carl rush across the bedroom.

"Good – you're still here."

"Bean," I groan when he jumps up.

Carl's out of breath, at the window now, peeking through curtain. He's on edge, and then before I know what's happening he's staggering across to me and pulling me off the bed.

"Carl?" I gasp, "What are you—"

...

"HOT

DIGGETY

 _DOG!_ "

...

A man's voice outside makes me startle.

"This place is _magnificent!_ "

I'm at the window now. Carl puts his hand on my back like he's worried I'll leap out of it. I brush him off, pull, only the window's stuck _—always stuck—_ but I can't see anything since this is the wrong side of the house. I run out into Carol's room, pulling up the window. It's the Saviors. I know it. The brownstones are blocking the view of the gate but what we do see is a whole road full of trucks outside the wall, so many they're spilling into lawns around the burned houses.

"Shit," I hiss, "dammit, they're early."

I'm tugged back into Oliver's bedroom, straight to the wardrobe. Carl grabs out a T-shirt and two sweaters, tells me, "Put them on, change your pants, too."

"What?"

Carl shakes a pair of Oliver's jeans at me.

"Why?" I insist.

"Look, just do it."

I stare at him.

"They can't know you're a girl, Enid," he confesses, curt, then takes a beanie hat from Oliver's drawer. It's thick and fluffy and neon blue. Carl pushes it into my hands and says, "They could take you, too."

I'm frowning, and my eyes are dangerously close to watering, but I nod.

"Thank you."

He leaves the room while I dress and when I'm ready he comes back in, tucking a lock of my hair under the beanie before he steps back to look at me. I'm too hot in here. The sweaters are sweltering, along with the hat, and the jeans are uncomfortably too tight on the hips but empty in the gap between. I have to consciously keep deciding not to stand with my legs crossed. How Nell preferred this is beyond me. Though, in truth, she only did it for the reason I am now.

"How do I look?"

Carl sighs. This can't be a good sign.

"Hunch your shoulders a little," I'm told.

"Like this?"

"And, frown more."

No problem.

"Okay," he says, "come on."

* * *

Carl and I cross the street and head past the gazebo towards the clinic. People are out here, heading to the main gate to see what all the noise's about. Savior trucks are coming in, along with a big black one. We pass Gabriel, who looks nervous and smiley and has dirt on his pants that he makes a wan effort to wipe off. When he sees us he nods very seriously, and we nod back.

Bean waits outside the clinic while we go in. Carl invades cupboards and organises half of everything and I help him, sweating, and I pretend not to notice him pocket a Ventolin inhaler. He looks angry now. Not so sad anymore. Oliver used to tease me on how wholly I feel things, like sadness or anger or happiness. He'd say, "You're all or nothing, Tink. One extreme or the other." And I think it's true for Carl, too, right now. Except he's either only sad or only angry. I haven't seen him happy in a long time.

"It's gonna be okay," he tells me. I realise my hands are shaking. I was thinking of what he and Oliver told me about them over the last few weeks. About how the Saviors take whatever and whoever they want. How there's always more of them than you think. But now I'm thinking about Maggie, who's still at the Hilltop, recovering. The others, bar Sasha, had to leave pretty fast that morning, so we don't know how she's doing. Carl adds, "I won't let anything happen to you."

"I know," I say, annoyed. I'm not a little girl.

"I know you're not," Carl says, because I'd said that out loud. I'm still not sure why he's so nice to me. But, then again, I am. Carl's doing it for him. For Oliver. I just sometimes don't think I deserve it. I sometimes don't think Carl thinks so, either. Still, he's looking at me and I'm acting like I'm not about to burst into tears, like I'm not a little girl who needs to be pitied, but I'm still thinking about Maggie and Carl can tell. I know it because he steps over and hugs me. I curse inside my mouth but after a second I melt into him. Can't even help it. Carl's hugs are like Carol's cookies. There's always something secret in them; something everyone can see but nobody can quite put their finger on.

"You smell of him," I whisper into flannel.

"You smell of him, too."

The craziest thing I've done all week is grieved over a boy with a boy who's grieving over the same boy. It's probably weird. No, it definitely is. But I'd be lying my ass off if I said it didn't make me feel better.

Bean starts growling.

Carl hears the footsteps first. He blanches for a second, then he looks at me, and for the first time in days there's a new emotion in his face, filling it like stuffing. I'm sure he's felt this recently, but he hasn't shown it until now...

He's afraid.

"Hide, Enid."

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

Two men.

One tall guy with dark skin and black crew cut hair and a short beard. The other guy is shorter but still stands at least a foot over my head, pale skin with deep laugh lines and the same hairstyle only straight and balding and brown. His ears are big and pointy.

"Mind if we come inside?"

"Yes."

Bean growls his agreement.

"Too bad, kiddo," the guy says. I'm listening for Enid but she must've found somewhere to hide because everything's silent. "Step aside."

After a few seconds, I do, snapping my fingers for Bean to relax. I explain, "Half the meds are set on the counter there," but the big eared guy goes straight to the cupboards, and even though he can see the boxes, he scoops up everything else, too.

"What are you doing?"

"What's it look like?"

"Stop!"

He doesn't, so my gun comes up.

"Davey..." the other guy warns.

" _Pfft,_ " he sneers. "Grow up, kid."

I shoot the wall between their heads. Someone curses, but when the second of shock wears off they glare at me. Bean barks at all of us, but he's locked outside.

"Put some back!" I order, pulling back the hammer. "Or the next one goes in you."

Davey laughs. "Kid..." he warns, "what do you think happens next?"

"You _die_."

My aim doesn't move.

"Carl." Dad's here now, a hand up, his other hand holding Lucille limp by his ankle. Negan's making him hold it? "Carl, put it down."

"No," I growl, sick of this. "He's taking all of our medicine. They said only _half_ our stuff!"

"Of course!" Negan laughs, stepping into the clinic, too. Bean goes completely silent. I've never seen him do that before... My skin crawls but I don't give Negan satisfaction of taking my finger away from the trigger. " _Oh-ho._ Really, kid?"

"You should go," I glare at him, breathless and furious. "Before you find out how dangerous we _all_ are."

"Well, pardon me, young man!" Negan grins. "Excuse the shit out of my fucking French, but did you just threaten me?"

I'm shifting steadily on my feet, heart racking, gun still up.

"Look, I get threatening Davey here," Negan says, "but I can't have it. Not him, not me—"

"Carl, just put it down," Dad hisses. I ignore him. Negan doesn't. His finger comes up but he keeps his eyes on me.

"Don't be _rude_ , Rick!" he says. "We are having a conversation here."

I hate him.

I hate him so much.

"Now, boy, where were we?" Negan asks. "Oh, yeah. Your giant, _man-sized_ balls..." He's doing that thing again. Standing and moving with his hips first. I try to mimic him, show I'm not scared, but mostly I'm just disoriented. "No threatening us," he instructs. "Listen, I like you—" _What?_ "—so I don't want to go hard proving a point here. You don't want that. I said half your shit, and _'half'_ is what I say it is. I'm serious. Do you want me to prove how serious? Again?"

My head fills with nightmares I haven't shaken since Glenn and Abraham, and I know 'what's going to happen next' if I don't cooperate. He'll probably skin Bean right in front of me, or worse, make _me_ do it. He'll knock Dad's eyes out and make me eat them. Or claim Enid. I shiver, and my arm drops. A breath leaves me sharp and stretched and furious, and I hand the firearm over to Dad, who is staring at me, tears suspending at the ends of his eyelashes. He sighs with relief and Negan takes the gun himself.

"You know, Rick, this whole thing reminds me that you have _a lot_ of guns," he says. "There's all the guns you took from my outpost when you _wasted_ all my people with a shit-ton of your own guns, and I'm bettin' there's even more, which adds up to an absolute _ass-load_ of guns, and as this little emotional outburst just made crystal fucking clear, I can't allow that."

Dad looks at me. Guilt and embarrassment turns my face into stone beetroots.

"They're all mine now," Negan steps closer to him. "So tell me, Rick. Where are my guns?"

Dad leaves and Negan follows after him. The two other men are still here and I watch them take everything, very carefully not thinking about what I'm hiding in my pocket, and when they aren't looking I sneak upstairs. Trucks are rolling around the whole community, Saviors coming and going out of homes as they please while everyone else stands aside and watches their things get stolen. Upstairs, Enid is in none of the spare rooms. Not under the beds or in the closets. I start to panic but when I get to the bathroom I see the shower curtain pulled over, so I open it.

Enid flinches, knife up, but relaxes when she knows it's me. "Are they gone?"

I shake my head. "No, but we sh—"

A gunshot makes us both startle. For a few seconds we stare at the window, like we're waiting for the screams, but none come. Slowly, we look at each other.

"Stay with me, okay?" I whisper, swallowing breathlessly. "I got your back."

"Got yours, too," she reminds me.

We go downstairs. Davey is coming up and he double takes while we walk past. I grab Enid's arm and move too quickly for him to ask questions. We leave the clinic and find Bean waiting on the side-walk across from the brownstone apartments, eyes on the pantry while the Saviors load up all our guns into a big truck outside. We can see Savior movement in Enid's bedroom through the window.

Dad and Negan are talking about the RPG but I can't hear much from here, just, "Oh, man, I'm gonna have some _fun_ with this!" There's also a man in a bland, thick jumpsuit with an orange painted 'A' over his chest. He leaves the armoury with a boxful of guns. He's bruised and sweaty and filthy, and doesn't say a word, and he looks small even though he's as tall as Dad. The thing is, Dad keeps looking at him like he wants to say something, and finally, I realise why...

"It's Daryl."

"He's the help," Enid, too.

I'm so angry I can't think straight for a second.

"They aren't taking the food," Enid manages before me, "just the guns."

Gabriel is here, stopping beside us.

"I dug an empty grave," he tells us quietly. "Negan wanted to take Maggie, so, I improvised."

"Must be nice," Enid says, "digging a grave you know's gonna stay empty."

Gabriel smiles, then looks her up and down and asks, "Why are you wearing Oliver's clothes?"

"Systematic," is all she says.

Enid doesn't look like much of a boy at all. If anybody looks closer than a hundred yards she's busted. But that's okay. I'll keep her further than that away from any of them.

Suddenly, Olivia is dragged up by one of Negan's Saviors; a woman with brown skin and dark curly hair and dyed blond ends.

"Arat," Negan points a finger, "we don't do that, unless they do something to _deserve_ it."

"Yeah, we went through the inventory," I think Arat says, but again, I can't hear much from here. She hands over Olivia's notebook and Negan reads through. They're talking, Olivia and Dad and Negan...

"I don't enjoy killing women," Negan is telling Olivia now, his voice so low I hardly hear it. My stomach is dropping. "Men – I can waste them all the live long. But at the end of the day, Olivia, my dear, this was _your_ responsibility."

"Look, we can work this out," Dad says.

"Oh, yes, we can!" Negan shouts. "And I'm going to. _Right now_."

Olivia is whimpering.

"This was your job, and _you_ fucked up," Negan growls at her. "Keeping track of guns? That shit is life and death."

I think Olivia is going to die. I think Negan is going to grab Lucille from Dad's hand and splatter Olivia across the asphalt. I get the urge to launch across the street and stand between them, like I can stop it, I can't, and then all I can think to do is hold onto Enid and stop her from watching it, spare her from seeing everything I've already had to...

Very slowly, Negan slides his arm around Olivia's shaking shoulders, pulls, and strolls away with her. "Gather your people, Rick," he orders over his shoulder, grinning. "You've got some explaining to do."

* * *

We're in church.

Before, Enid went home for something while I went to get Judith. She said she'd be fine, that she had Bean, so now I'm waiting and anxious with Judith beside me in her stroller, sat on the bench with the alter ahead. Every time the door opens I see the broad shoulders of some Savior standing on guard, making sure we don't try anything, and someone else coming to join: Barb. Tobin. Francis. Eric. Eugene. Until finally, when I'm close to getting up and searching myself, Enid comes through. She doesn't come and sit with me because there's no space left, so instead takes a seat in the last row at the back, Bean pacing the whole room a few times while everybody settles down. I still don't know what Enid went home for, maybe Scab.

The 'fuck up' Negan mentioned is two missing guns, and one of us has it. But when Dad says this, nobody comes forward.

"I thought about hiding some of the guns," Dad begins. "I did it before. I figured I could bury some out there. Maybe we don't touch them for years."

"Years?" Tobin asks.

"That's right," Dad says. "But what if the Saviors find those guns? What if we run into them when we have them on us?"

He walks down the aisle, then back to the alter, slowly.

"One of us dies. Maybe more than that. Maybe a lot more. Doesn't matter how many bullets we have. It isn't enough. They win. It's that black-and-white. Hiding a couple of guns isn't the answer, not anymore. We don't have to like it, but we need to give them over."

The church is silent.

"A Glock nine, and a twenty-two. That's what they're looking for. Who has it?"

The first syllable of Oliver's name passes Enid's lips before I cut her off – "Oliver took his Glock, he coulda taken the twenty-two as well."

"No," Dad says, "it wasn't him. Olivia marked off what he took when we realised he was gone."

I hate that word. _Gone._ I can feel Enid's eyes on me and I avoid looking around at her.

"Someone knows where they are or they know who does," Dad goes on. "If we don't find them, they're gonna kill Olivia. They'll do it." She's currently outside of Spencer's house, on the porch, drinking lemonade with Negan while he waits for us to give over the hidden firearms.

"Why do they care?" Scott asks. "Two guns aren't a threat to them. But those guns could help protect us from whatever else is out there."

"Do you have 'em?"

"Wish I did."

"Most of you weren't there," Dad explains. I swallow. "You didn't have to watch. You can look away now when someone else dies or you can help solve this. We give them what they want, and we live in peace."

Behind me, Aaron and Eric are whispering, until Eric stands up. "Say we find the guns. How are we gonna get out of this, Rick?"

"There is no way out of this," Dad says. "Let me put this to all of you as clearly as I can. I'm not in charge anymore. Negan is."

It's one thing thinking it. But it's another actually hearing it.

"Now, who has the guns?"

Again, the church falls into silence. That sticky kind where you can feel people sizing you up, trying to read your face, trying to find someone to blame. Eugene is who breaks the silence...

"Not everyone's here."

* * *

Dad spends all day searching Spencer's house. He's who is out with Rosita finding Daryl's bike. Spencer's stolen food before, so taking a gun isn't unlikely.

Mr. and Mrs. Miller are looking after Judith for me, and Enid and I get back home in time to watch my whole street getting stripped. Furniture too. Enid keeps her head down and I do my best to ignore them all when they tease us and dangle our things in front of our faces. I only realise I'm heading to Oliver's room when Enid grabs my arm to stop me. There are Saviors inside but I need to get something before they take it.

"Stay out here," I tell her.

"What? N—"

"Keep your voice down. It's too high."

She glares at me but I'm already walking away, inside, upstairs. They're already looking through his stuff, taking things like his music and his medicine and his books. They've even taken his mattresses. I'm looking for the bedside table but it's gone. Crap. I'm about to leave, losing my temper, but Davey bursts out laughing.

"Jesus Chris! Kid, come here! This yours?"

His back is to me and he and his friend are both are laughing down at something in his hand. I think I know what it is. Probably that photo of Angel Salvador Oliver keeps in his underwear drawer that he doesn't know everyone knows about, or maybe the centrefold he keeps under his mattress. Only, I'm wrong. When Davey turns to me, he holds something up to my face except I can't see it right away, just them both snickering. I tilt my head to see.

It's what I came here for.

The photo.

The photo Oliver doesn't pin up with the rest.

The photo of us kissing.

My whole body is on fire with anger and embarrassment while I snatch it from them and yell, "Get out. Now!"

They don't so I grab someone's arm and shove. Davey retaliates quickly by prodding my shoulder with his finger. I push him back, and then he pushes me so hard I hit the bookshelf and a few books fall over me. He's saying things but I'm not hearing him. I'm just watching him grab the photo before I can get a grip on it. He holds it up in front of himself, takes out his lighter... and there's nothing I can do as flame touches and ignites the corner of the paper. Fire eats us, me and Oliver, corroding a memory I can't even remember anymore into nothing but ash and dust.

Davey lets go, and slowly, it floats down and drops right in front of me. My mouth is on the floor and I try desperately to smack out the flames, grunting and wincing when I'm burned. But it's too late. Photograph paper is bubbling and burning out on the carpet right at my fingertips... _ruined_.

I look up, furious.

"Oops," Davey pouts, "shame about that, fa—"

I've thrown a punch before I know it. Another comes back just as hard, blowing a hole through my chest. It's so hard I'm knocked to the floor and winded. He kicks me next. Once, twice. But then Enid is here and screaming at them to stop and they do, suddenly.

" _Oh-ho!_ "

I'm heaving. When I can peek up, I see a knife in Enid's hand.

"Get the hell away from him..."

"Looky here," Davey says cheerfully, like he's just won a lottery. "I _thought_ you were far too pretty to be a little boyo."

Quickly, he knocks Oliver's hat off of her. Enid's hair slumps down around her shoulders and she grits her teeth, but is wise enough not to use her knife for it.

"Leave him alone," she says, her voice very low now, "please?"

He sucks in air through his teeth and chuckles dryly, then steps forward, about to say something, or do something, but—

"Davey," the other guy says, warning him. Davey listens, looking back like he's annoyed, like he's been snapped awake. He glances at me and smiles. The other guy says, "We don't lay a finger on them. It's against the rules."

"Kid threw the first punch," he tells his companion, "deserved it."

"Come on, man."

Davey watches us. Enid grabs me and yanks me to my feet. We stagger around them, down the staircase, out of the house. Birds are chirping in the trees and the sun is up and turning the sky soft and warm and lazy for the late afternoon; it's like the world doesn't match the day, like picking up the wrong coloured pencil.

"Don't tell Dad." It's hard to stand up straight but with effort I can and nobody will be able to tell my chest is caving in. It feels it. Worse than that. I feel like I'm breaking. "Enid, please don't tell him."

"I won't," she reassures me, and she's looking at me now. Her cheek is wet and I realise it's from my tears. "Promise."

She's not _supposed_ to see me like this. Nobody's supposed to see me like this. I grunt and let go.

"Shit," Enid hisses. I look at where she's staring. "He followed us."

"Little girl!" Davey calls. "Wanna talk to you."

She turns to him, looking bored. I stand beside her, glaring.

"Just you," Davey tells her, waving me away. Bean had followed him. I don't know where he's been but he's limping a little. No blood or broken bones, by the looks, but he definitely got on the wrong side of somebody. I take his collar and tell myself Davey won't hurt her. Especially not out in the open. Dad's in the house behind me and as much as I won't let anybody hurt Enid he sure as hell won't either. But the guy already said; Negan doesn't lay a finger on us unless we give reason. His men'll follow that. They have to. So I step back and stare him down. She looks at me once but turns back to him, watching him walk around her until his back is to me and I can barely see her over his shoulder from the side-walk.

He holds out his hand.

Enid glares at it.

"Empty your pockets," he says. With reluctance, she does, loading a handful of something small and rubber and green into his palm. "Balloons?" he laughs. "You going to a party, little girl?"

I cross my arms to dull the ache in my ribs. Bean lies down; that lie animals do when they're also ready to attack.

"Can I keep them, please?" she asks dryly, rolling her eyes when he doesn't stop grinning down at her. "It's just..." She stops and shrugs. "Let me keep them."

"Say please again, little girl."

He takes two steps forward and she takes one tiny one back. She should walk away. She shouldn't give him what he wants for some stupid balloons... but she does anyway.

"Please."

"Yeah..." He strokes her cheek. "One more time."

" _Please,_ " she snaps.

My blood is boiling.

He drops the balloons at her feet and tells her, "Be careful, little girl."

Furious, I look at Dad behind me, watching, too. He's holding a sack. "They'll be gone soon," is the best he can tell me. I'm so mad I don't say anything. I turn back to Enid and watch her. She takes back the balloons. Other Saviors are crowding her, sneering down her neck while they all talk at her, asking her inappropriate questions that make her cross her arms and glare at them. They don't touch her, however.

"What you got for me, Rick?"

Dad hands over the sack and Negan empties the missing guns into his palm.

"Well, would you look at that? They were here after all!" he cheers. "Funny how a little, _'Holy fuck! Somebody's gonna die!'_ lights a fire under everybody's ass!"

Olivia is crying.

"So, tell me, Rick – which one of your _fine_ folks almost cost Olivia the rest of her days?"

"It doesn't matter anymore."

"No, it matters," Negan reprimands him. "See, you need to get _everybody_ on board. _Everybody._ Or, we just go right back to square one."

* * *

The truck is full with every firearm we own.

 _Owned._

Enid doesn't look at me while the Saviors leave. She stands by my side outside the pantry and holds onto my hand, balloons clamped between in our fingers and Bean's scruff tangled in her other hand. We listen to the engines starting up and Negan speaking even though we can't hear the words. I'm just furious. Negan is playing my dad like an instrument. He's telling him to jump and Dad is asking how high. He's slipping his dick down his throat and Dad is _thanking_ him for it. I'm sick of it.

Enid's let go of me by now, but I don't notice until I turn to look at her. She's already shutting the front door. I don't go after her. I go home, or, I intend to, but where I really end up is Oliver's room.

There's smoke coming in through the window and I burn my hands in rushing to grab the trash can from the roof. It's filled with his things, and I throw it in the shower and douse out the burning belongings as quickly as I can. Water is everywhere by the time I switch it off. I pick out anything left but when I think I rescue a photo, it crumbles apart in my hands. Mikey and Ron and our adventures with Nell and Enid, there's no proof of it now, I hardly even remember it. It's all just a story. Even the stories he kept, all the books and comics, they're gone.

Just like him.

At some point, I catch a look at myself in the mirror and realise I'm crying. I try to wipe my face but I cover it in soot instead. Inside Oliver's room, everything is gone. The bookshelf is bear and the wall of photographs and notes is shredded. Both his and Noah's beds are mattress-less. I spot the photo of me and Oliver kissing; trod-on with a singed mark in the carpet under it when I pick it up. Out of them all, this is probably the one that took the least damage. I can see part of my face, his and my mouths crashing, his hands in my hair and part of the wall in the background, but nothing else.

I tear it up and throw it in the trash can.

The crying won't stop. I grab the beanie hat Enid was wearing, smell it, then rip it into four and throw it in the trash, too. I don't know how long later Michonne is calling out to me. I'm still in his room, startling when she rushes in and catches me snapping CDs and tossing them out the gap in the window, and for a few moments she takes in the state of his bedroom, worse now while I toss another CD. I hear The Foundations skid across the roof. Then I just sit on the window-ledge and put my head in my hands and don't say anything. Michonne's looking at me, looking sad and mad and like she doesn't know what to say to me for this. I wouldn't. It's terrible. She just sits on the window-ledge with me for a while, a gentle hand on my shoulder.

"I wasn't looking for him today."

There's no chance I'm holding back the crying now, only I am, somehow. I'm all blocked up like an eye plug.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I was trying to practice my aim."

I say, "I know," because I do. I say, "It's okay," even though it's not, even though my heart is breaking, even though I miss Oliver so much I hurt all over, even though there is so much I had to say and so much time I spent not saying it, and now I never will. Ever. Morgan told Dad not to look for him if he didn't come back. But Morgan would have come back if Oliver found him. Carol, too. They just would have, wouldn't they?

"Carl..."

"I know everyone knows," I tell her.

"Knows what?"

"That something went wrong," I say, blank and numb and flat. I'm a wall.

"Carl, no."

"Yeah," I say. "They aren't coming back. They're dead."

Inside of me, the crying is heavy and ugly and messy. The kind of crying that takes over my whole body. But on the outside I'm brick, layering on cement now, with an electric fence. Michonne holds me and breathes into the top of my head anyway.

"We don't know," she tells me. "We don't. We don't know anything. Not yet."

I don't say anything.

"Are you gonna sleep here again tonight?" she asks. I want to, but I shake my head. Michonne sighs... "You know, I knocked my ex-boyfriend's teeth out and cut both his arms off. His best friend, too."

Of course, I know this, so I look at her and frown in confusion.

"Sleeping in your ex-boyfriend's bedroom and reading comic books with his best friend seems a lot healthier," she explains. "You can stay here, if you want to."

I just nod.

"Okay," she says, touching my wrist and smiling. "Come on, we'll get you something to sleep on."

* * *

The new bed is a few sheets and pillows on the floor in Oliver's room. Michonne helps me set everything up, and eventually we go next door. I go up to say goodnight to Judith. The house is in the same stripped state as the rest of the community. Inside my room, my desk's gone, my drawings are torn up –all of them– and the only things left are one bed out of two with a mattress and some of my clothes and posters. Even my sketch-pads are gone. Every one of them except the one I hid and didn't show anybody. The Saviors didn't find it. I hide it up in the vent and stay in the next room with Judith for a while. Dad's across the hallway. He's been lugging bedsheets upstairs to set up a bed for him and Michonne. I overhear their conversation...

"They took our mattresses – most of them," Dad says.

"That rifle was one of theirs from the outpost. They didn't have a list?"

Dad is quiet.

"Could've hidden more."

"Did you?" he asks her.

Michonne sighs. "No." I think she walks away, but she must go back. "Everything we have, we got from fighting."

"I made the choice," Dad replies, almost arguing. "There aren't enough of us. It's about numbers."

"There's the Hilltop."

"They'd still have the _numbers_. We play by their rules, and we get some kind of life."

"What _kind_ of a _life?_ " Michonne almost yells, but lets out her breath quietly. There's this one morning I think of then. I remember it, all of a sudden; Mom and Dad fighting – _"Speak, Rick."_ I remember another night, too, of me yelling almost the same thing to Oliver, and finally Oliver did speak, and Dad does now, too: He tells her about Shane, how he was his friend, his partner, how he saved me and Mom while he was in a coma, how they were together, Shane and Mom, and they thought he was dead...

"I know Judith isn't mine. I know it."

After this, Dad takes a long heavy breath; it's the first time he's ever said it.

"I love her," he goes on. "She's my daughter. But she isn't mine. I had to accept that – I did, so I could keep her alive. I'll die before she does, and I hope that's a long time from now so I can raise her and protect her and teach her how to survive. This is how we live _now_. I had to accept that, too, so I could keep everyone else alive."

"It's not your _fault_ when people die."

"Not always, but sometimes – sometimes it is," he explains hoarsely. "You have to accept this –all of us do– or it won't work."

"I'm gonna try."

I leave, catching a small silent glance from them before I turn around the banister. I go to the pantry to check on Enid and Olivia. Olivia is stocking food. The Saviors really left us with it all, bar a few soda cans and chocolate bars. I find Enid in what used to be her bedroom but is now a bomb shelter. She's pacing frantically, mumbling under her breath, panicking and tossing books across the room and emptying every drawer.

"Enid?"

"Where is it?!"

"Where's what?"

"Shit, I think they killed him."

"Who?"

"Scab. I can't find _Scab_. Jesus, they – those assholes killed Scab!"

"I'll help you look for him."

We go on an Alexandrian cat-hunt. Scab isn't in the pantry, or the armoury. The last place Enid saw him was here though, but we don't find him in any of his favourite hiding places. We search every corner he could've gotten to, but then we realise wherever Scab is, he likely didn't get there by himself, so we check every cupboard, every closed off place; the microwave and the fridge and the oven and the empty space behind the fireplace, expecting to find bits of mashed up kitten laid out like starters on plates or puréed in cups, until finally...

Scab is in the freezer.

When Enid scoops him out, the kitten isn't moving. He must've been in there for hours. All day, maybe. Olivia is horrified. She grabs a hair-dryer and Enid rubs the kitten's whole body. It's dead. I don't know why they're bothering. But when I tell them this Olivia practically screams in my face so I yell back and tell her she's an idiot and suddenly I'm the worst person in the world. Enid shuts us up arguing when the says, "He's moving!"

Olivia: "He is?"  
Me: "What?"

"Just barely. But yeah."

"Give him here."

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"CPR."

"You can give cats CPR?"

"Yeah," Olivia says, "I took a class once."

It looks like she's crushing him with her thumbs, squeezing his chest every second while Enid aims the hair-dryer at them like a pistol. This would be funny if it wasn't already totally screwed up. I think I see Scab blink and then I see his tail shudder, too, and then, after an even longer time, I see his paw twitch. Bean has been staring the whole time, and when he sees this he barks.

"This is so messed up," Olivia keeps saying. "This is _so_ messed up."

Finally, Enid calms down enough to leave Scab and Olivia in front of the fire, curled up in about a hundred blankets. Olivia says looking after him will give her something to do. She still hates me and being around her is irritating me, too, so I ask Enid if she wants to come and read comics with me, since all of hers were taken or destroyed, and she says yes so we go to Oliver's room together. We look, but also find none. There weren't any in my room either. Enid looks devastated.

Under her breath, because she seems to have ran out of it all, she whispers, "They burned everything."

The sun is starting to set.

"Here," I say, thinking on my feet while I grab a rubix cube that was hiding behind the door. I hand it to her. "You like puzzles."

She smiles, thinking on her feet too while she picks up a snapped in half pencil and a school textbook. "Here," she says, pushing them into my hands. "You like drawing."

* * *

Enid falls asleep before long. She gets all of the green side of the rubix cube, but the rest is still jumbled. Quietly, I'm losing myself in doodling, and in the end I only stop when I realise Enid is awake; curled up beside me with her head rested on her palm and her eyes fixed on the textbook in my hands. I snap it shut and feel my face heat up, but I let her take it when she asks, "Please?" because I figure she's had to say that enough times today. After all, I drew her. It's not much detail since it's a quick sketch and the textbook is pretty small and I only used one corner, but it felt good to draw again.

"It's cool," Enid says.

I blush again. When you become fluent in _Enid,_ you start to understand that when she says _cool_ it means something considerably more substantial than just _cool_ to her. The drawing is of her holding on to a bouquet of helium balloons, and they're carrying her up up up into the sky but she's holding on to the very edge of the wall with her other hand so she won't fly away.

"Maybe I'll let go soon," she whispers.

"Of what?"

She doesn't answer.

My chest is still aching and I decide I need to move around, so I get up. Enid, taking the hint, pulls her shoes off and huddles under the duvet. It's barely dark outside yet but she'll likely sleep all the way through until morning. She's also clearly intending to sleep here, too, which I haven't got a problem with. But right now I won't be joining her.

"Gonna walk Bean."

She's still looking at the drawing. "Okay."

I stop at the door. "Enid?"

She looks at me.

"What were the balloons? Why..." I sigh. "Why did you want to keep them so bad?"

"Remember the day the tower fell?"

"Some."

"Right before, me and Glenn let a bunch of green balloons up outside, so you'd know we were there."

I'm frowning.

"You remember it?"

I nod, say, "Oliver got so excited. I had to, hold his hand..." I'm smiling, but then I'm not. "You ran away, too, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

We're both quiet. I'm scared it's the wall she's going to let go of soon. I'm scared she'll fly away with hers and Glenn's green balloons and never come back.

"Hey," I whisper quietly. "I'll make you some scrambled eggs in the morning."

"Cool."

As I leave, I say, "Sleep well."

* * *

 **Notes**

Carl and Enid taking care of each other for Oliver is my therapy.

HUGE thank you to **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** aka. **ronweasleytho** on Tumblr for letting me use the prompt idea you posted a while back. Enid being Michonne's biggest fan is so cute xD Also, blame **TheDarkerSide123** for the frozen Scab incident ^.^ He made me do a thing (look after myself) one (far more than one) time and so I wrote that in spite of him but actually thanks lots just know Bean was  this close to becoming dog meat m8

P.S. I once had a cat who hid in the gap behind/inside our fireplace all the time, and one day we lit it without checking and heard a huge hiss and the cat flew out at us (she was okay, just spooked _– and almost roasted…_ OwO)

As always,  
Happy reading.


	36. Go Getters: Flying

**RHatch89** Thank you!

 **DampishPoet** -_- oh no

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** Thank you for the inspiration.

 **Anna Katharyn** They're so sweet x_x

 **johnjohn1970** Thank you, I'll try *hearts*

 **Akiie-chan (but I think you're Rolochan and you used your sisters account again on accident xD)** I've had Shelter on for the last 4 days... so good. It's legit playing right now. Ooh, that's a cool idea with Oliver and the katana. I'll think about it! Ugh, I need part B now. Like, _now..._ I think the trouble is that Oliver doesn't believe in himself anymore. Olivertoast xD omg wow he'd love that. Anyway, thank you so much.

 _My second semester of uni starts tomorrow and I'm churning out this chapter as a coping mechanism. Anyone read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe? That is also my coping mechanism right now._

* * *

A/N concerning story: There's been a small time stretch, and also Tara's home half an episode early - if you think I'm up to something then you're right, and if you think despite that, that I also have no clue wtf I'm doing, then _oh boy_ you're right, my friend.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

 _The truth runs wild  
Like the rain to the sea  
Trying to set straight the lines that I trace  
To find some relief_

 _This voice inside  
Has been eating at me  
Trying to embrace the picture I paint  
And colour me free..._

I'm mad.

It's been a month since our mattresses were stolen and burned. The Saviors have been back every week to bleed us dry, and they've started taking food now, too. The next collection is in three days and Dad's leaving for an overnight run with Aaron to find anything they can. They're in my room; Dad, Aaron and Michonne.

"You should come with us," Dad says to me. I sigh, throw another dart. Miss.

"Somebody's gotta be here for Judith," I say.

"There's people who wanna help," Dad replies. I know this, of course. There's Barb and Olivia and Tara, who came back a few days after the first visit from the Saviors, alone. She lost both Heath and Noah on a bridge, found some tire tracks nearby and a note that said 'PPP' but has no idea what it meant or if it was even from them. She hasn't seen them since. And we haven't really seen her a lot since she got back either. She's pretty cut up, after finding out about Denise, and Glenn and Abraham, and Oliver. We bring her food and sit and drink tea sometimes, but mostly she's in her apartment alone reading _War and Peace_ over and over. Dad's still talking: "we'll only be gone a few days at most."

 _I have plans..._ I think, but carefully don't speak to him. I throw again. Miss.

"We need supplies," Dad insists. "They're gonna be comin' back soon."

"Is this how it's gonna be now?" I hiss, holding back the, _"You being Negan's new bitch?"_ The other day Negan called him that again, and the time before that he got Dad to kneel for him. I throw another dart. Miss. _Dammit._

"Yes," Dad retorts, "it is. You know that."

I throw the last dart. Miss. With a sharp sigh, I cross by bedroom and take the darts back again, not looking around while I tell him, "See you in a few days."

"We should get goin'," Dad says.

They leave my room.

"He'll come around," I hear Aaron while I try more throws. Dad tells Michonne they're headed north, giving over a walkie talkie for if she changes her mind, and she tells him, "Good luck," and he tells her, "See you soon," and I see them kiss before I turn away and miss another four times.

* * *

Later, when they're gone, I'm sitting backwards on a dining room chair and watching Michonne fill up her pack. She's going out to scavenge, back by tomorrow.

"Why didn't you go with my dad?" I ask her. She's wearing a red sleeveless blouse, her katana over her shoulder, and a faded black and blue headband.

"I have to figure some things out."

I step off of the chair and follow her into the kitchen, asking, "What is there to figure out?"

"How we can do this," she answers, frowning down at her pack. " _If_ we can."

"We _can't,_ " I almost yell, but realise it's a bad tactic. "Not like this."

"Your dad thinks differently," she says, adding two water bottles.

"And he's wrong," I answer back, "you _know_ it." She does. I can see it in her face. She walks past me towards the door and slings the pack over her shoulder, turning back for a second...

"Even if I... think he is. I don't _know_." She's leaving. "Change your bandage later, and be _nice_ to Olivia." Olivia and I haven't been getting along lately, not since our screaming match over Scab, who's fine now, by the way.

The door shuts and I'm left alone, glaring at the floor. When I look up something catches my eye through the window. I step over, see who it is, then march right out of the house.

"Enid."

It's cold enough this early in the morning that my breath makes small fog clouds in front of my mouth. She's at the wall. Our blind spot. _Her_ blind spot – I sometimes have to remind myself that no matter how many times Oliver and I joined her out there, it was hers first. She's sliding the poles into the gaps, climbing up, not looking back at me.

"I need to see Maggie."

"You're walking to Hilltop?" I ask, a little relieved really. "It's far." Twenty miles. It'll take her all day to get there, maybe a night, too.

"I'll be fine," she says.

"Maybe."

"I'll be fine!" She looks at me then, shrugging. "I have better aim than you." Enid sighs when I look at the ground. "I didn't mean it that way."

My head shakes.

"I'm not saving you anymore," I say quietly.

"That what happened in the armoury, and with him?" she asks. "You saved us?"

"Yeah."

"You made it back in one piece," Enid says, "you're still here."

"He's not." I have to swallow so I can keep talking. "Anyway, I'm not talking about that."

She's watching me. "I'm sorry you had to see it."

"I'm not."

Then she's disappearing over the other side of the wall and I'm going back inside. I pace the living room. I don't know for how long. I'm thinking I meant it, before: I'm not saving her anymore. She'll be fine alone. I've done enough trying to protect her – to protect them both. But he still left and now she's leaving, too, and – and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of this being the Saviors' fault, so I get up, check Judith's asleep, then grab my stuff and go.

Guess I didn't mean it...

I am still saving them.

* * *

Stealing a car is easy. It's no surprise Carol and Oliver were able to do it on separate occasions within the same twenty-four hours. Granted, right now nobody is actually on watch. We already know who the biggest threat is now, so there's almost no point anymore. I take Dad's keys and drive the car right out of the gate with enough time and freedom to open and close it myself without a soul noticing. The driving is a little sticky and I'm not sure how much I remember from Dad's lesson and a lot of it I figure out myself, but I do okay.

A mile later, I only realise Bean's following me when I see him sprinting after the car in the mirror.

"Dammit."

I pull over, and after a second a pair of paws hit the glass beside me. Bean's panting hard, leaving fog on the glass. He looks like he might collapse. With a sigh, I reach over to the passenger door and open it. He flops across the seat and I have to help pull him in. He's exhausted and his paws are cold and blistered, but otherwise, he's alright, so I start up again. Bean looks up at me hopefully and I sigh...

"Let's go kill some Saviors."

I don't know where they are, but I do know that someone at Hilltop does. I also know Enid's going to take the same route Jesus mapped out, and since I don't know if any other route is safe, I have to follow it too, so it doesn't surprise me when I find her on the road by an old building. She's stood to the side with a blue bike, staring down a walker coming after her. She can take it herself, I know. But if there's one thing I know how to do with a car, it's how to run down a walker.

"Bean, hold on."

It hit the corpse square in the centre of the hood and it disappears over the roof, leaving a dent and a big splatter of blood on the window. I forget, however, to brake, so I ram right into a _drive slow_ pillar. I manage to catch Bean before he flies through the windscreen with an arm across his chest. He's okay, just mildly horrified, now trying to cling to me like dogs should never try to cling to anything. I see the walker get up behind the car and I struggle Bean away, then switch to reverse. When I hit the gas the car lurches backwards and crushes the walker against the wall.

Slowly, Enid pushes her bike to the window. I roll it down and smirk up at her, but it's not as cool as I wanted it to be because Bean climbs right over me to get out and greet her. He vomits at her feet. She pets him until he stops crying. I'm grimacing, but when she looks at me I smile.

"What are you doing here?" she asks.

I shrug, tell her, "Felt like a drive."

Her face is scrunched, still in shock as she reaches into the car and pulls something out of my hair.

"What is it?" I ask.

She stares at her palm and whispers, "Dragonfly wing," and I don't know why this makes her look like she's just figured something important out. When I ask, she just tells me, "It's not my secret to tell."

* * *

The car doesn't start up again, so we keep walking. Enid, always the forward planner, brought extra gloves and another jacket that she lets me wear. By the time it starts to get dark we're around five or six miles away, freezing our asses off, and even though we could get there in a few hours, we know we shouldn't be out in the open at night-time, so Enid helps me inside an old post office by climbing up onto my shoulders to get onto the balcony and climb in through the window. Once she lets me inside, we find candles for light along with the flash-light in her backpack. She doesn't have any food but we both ate before we left, so we can manage until tomorrow. While we set up a fire, Bean finds a mouse and eats everything but its tail.

"If you put it in my pocket again, you lose an appendage," I'm told.

"It wasn't me, remember?"

For the most part, Enid and I keep quiet. The fire we manage to light is in a trash can, fuelled by the cards on display or the bank bills in the mail. Enid won't let me burn the written letters – I guess for the same reason she kept that faded letter tied to the blue star balloon. So, while the fire burns, she reads their letters and curls up to stay warm and I switch on a radio I find. It's just white noise until I figure out how to switch it to CD. It's an orchestra compilation.

"Ugh."

"No, no," Enid says quietly, "keep it on."

I do, turning it down so it won't attract attention. Frost is starting to grow around the windows and I'm breathing fog. Enid falls asleep after long. I keep the music on until the album is over, and then it's just very very quiet. I've taken a seat on a chair by the window, on watch. There isn't a lot to watch out there, it being so dark, plus, the blinds are drawn, so I listen to crickets and the wind and trees. I hear something like a possum or a raccoon outside, but don't spot anything when I peek. Same with a few walkers I hear around. They must leave after long or at least quiet down because I eventually stop hearing anything.

After a few hours, Enid wakes up. She and Oliver both have this strange habit when they're sleepy, especially when they're cold, too. They get all snuggly. I've only ever called Oliver out on it once and that was a few months ago when I went full-rant on him after our argument over the cookies and acorns. Still, I can't say I'm totally expecting it when Enid sits on my lap and cuddles up to my chest. I laugh quietly enough she doesn't think anything of it. Plus, there _is_ only one chair. Her nose is so cold I hiss through my teeth when it touches my collarbone.

"You should sleep some more."

"It's okay," she yawns. "I'm not tired."

"You're tired."

"I won't be in a few minutes."

"Okay," I say sarcastically, my chin bumping her head. The candles are still burning, as are the last few embers in the fire, so it's enough to see by. Enid leans off and peeks through the blinds. She seems to be awake a little more, so she stands up and leans against the window instead. There's a candle on the sand next to us and she plays with the wax, making shapes under her nails.

"Your bandage is dirty."

I touch it, pull it. No reason. Like Oliver pulls at his beanie. "Michonne told me to change it," I admit, "just, forgot."

"You felt like a drive, right?" she says sarcastically. I don't reply and we're quiet for a few minutes. The only noise is my foot rocking side to side against the peeling wallpaper under the window. After long, I'm asked, "Not sorry you saw it?"

I look up. I can see the moon in her eyes. Fits. Enid's the kind of girl who'd do that; keep the moon in her eyes.

"Yeah," I tell her quietly. "I watched it. Both times. Didn't look away."

"Why?"

"'Cause, when it was happening, I knew that I needed to remember it, so when I have a chance to kill him, I wouldn't have a choice."

"I think I'd kill him, too."

I stare at her. I've never heard her say something like that.

"It's messed up, but," she shakes her head, "it's how it works. You do things for the ones you love... _loved_."

I look away at Bean, who's folded up asleep under a blanket by the fire. "It's not for them." She doesn't say anything back, so I add, "I'm sorry I locked you in the armoury."

"I didn't need to see it. Oliver didn't either."

I may shut my eye for a few seconds because hearing somebody actually say this to me is like getting let out of prison for a crime I didn't mean to commit. I'll never know if Oliver would have lived to come back with us in the RV that morning. I'll never know if there was something I could have done to make him stay. I'll never get to tell him I'm sorry, or that—

"I don't even know if she's okay," Enid says, and she sounds like she might cry. I think Enid spends as much time thinking about Maggie as I spend thinking about Oliver.

"We'll get there."

"Yeah," Enid says. "You should rest. I got this watch."

* * *

 _It's still night-time. I can see the nothing outside between the gaps of the blinds, and inside it's totally dark and freezing. We're all wrapped up. Only, it isn't just Enid, Bean and me in here. Oliver stands in front of me, hand in his pocket._

 _"Hey, man."_

 _For a second we just look at each other. I can't quite describe what he looks like. Just that there are big dragonfly wings behind his back, small rainbows glistening slightly between the veins, and his hair is made entirely of vine leaves and flowers. Still, I can't see his face much, just his light. And I mean that too. Oliver is made of light. From inside his chest through a silk-spun shirt and skin, his features glow softly in between heartbeats._

 _"Where'd you go?" I ask him. Oliver doesn't answer my question, just glances across the room._

 _"How are they?"_

 _"Okay," I answer, "I think."_

 _"That's good," Oliver says. His chest glows a little lighter for a second and I want to reach out and touch him, but I don't. He asks, "And how are you, Carl?"_

 _I shrug..._

 _"I miss you," I decide to tell him. "A lot. More than anything, actually."_

 _Oliver just watches me, his heart glowing up the room with every beat._

 _"I... I wanted to tell you something, before," I explain, "but, I... I never—"_

 _Oliver shakes his head._

 _I'm quiet._

 _His light is dim. So dim. But enough to see him looking at me, and then, very slowly, Oliver bends down to me. I feel his breath, and his warm fingers while they slip across my cheek, and when he kisses me it's soft and gentle and quiet. Suddenly, the glow in his chest becomes so powerful it heats up the whole room. But too quickly, I feel his fingers slipping away from me, his vinery untangling from my hair as he breaks our lips, and I whisper, "Please don't go."_

 _Our noses touch, and then his light dims to darkness._

"I'll find you."

I open my eyes and Oliver is gone. The air is cold and the sun is waking up. I rub my face and yawn, wiping my eyes quickly when I realise they're wet. Enid is awake, watching me, her face all arched up like a bridge.

"Is it time to go?" she asks.

"Yeah."

"Okay."

* * *

The walking is miserable and quiet and I know Enid is crying. She hasn't really stopped. I've hardly ever seen her cry. Actually, I don't ever remember her crying once. Even now, I can't see it; just the occasional shake of her shoulders from the few yards I'm walking behind. I know it's me making her so upset. She's already sad after Glenn and Oliver and Abraham, and worried for Maggie and if the baby is okay, but I think she knows what I'm doing now. I think she's figured it out...

I should make it up to her, tell her I'm sorry for more than just locking her in the armoury, but I keep my distance instead.

Off to the side in the ditch, I see a dead body and decide to loot it. There's a backpack, and inside, nothing except two sets of roller-skates. Suddenly, I know how I'm going to start making it up to her.

"Enid," I grin, "stop."

I must fall a ten times before we make it a hundred yards. Not Enid. Enid gets the hang of it almost immediately. She roller-skates like Oliver skateboards; like swimming downstream, like running downhill.

I'm blanching and staggering and Enid grabs my hand and laughs. I spin around even though I'm trying to go forward. Bean runs in circles around us. I'm laughing so hard I almost fall again, but she keeps me on two legs, keeping hold, fingers locked and steady.

"We did this last week," I decide to tell her. "Me and him. Rode around Alexandria; he had his board and I took a bike."

"Was it fun?"

"Yeah," I smile. "It was."

She smiles back, but after a second it falls.

"What?" I dodge a rock. "What is it?"

"I haven't told you something."

"Well tell," I say. Enid sighs, stops, and from the momentum I turn around to her – a little wobbly and coping with an adrenaline rush.

"Michonne can't look for him anymore," she confesses, "not with the Saviors around." I'm quiet. "I wanted to tell you," Enid says quickly, "but I just..."

"Michonne told me," I admit. "But, I knew."

I'm still thinking of that evening with Oliver riding around Alexandria, when I kissed him and he kissed me back. I think of what happened when the sun went down, when we were all alone in his bedroom, and how, even though I knew it was a one-time thing, I also knew there wasn't any time I'd ever felt happier, even though I left right afterwards because I thought he didn't want me to stay. Maybe, if I had, everything would be different...

"He said he hated me," I explain. "That was the last thing Oliver told me."

She watches me, tugging a little when I almost lose my balance. There's something I think all the time, a whole sentence, and I can't help but think it and I know it's true but I've never said it out loud before, not once, not even before I don't think, so I do, to Enid, now...

"I'm still in love with him."

Her eyes are closed and she lets out a slow breath, then tells me, "I think I loved him, too."

I'm quiet. I feel small and lost and confused.

"I never told you why we stopped," she says. "But, I think that's why. 'Cause I knew I was. I knew I missed Ron, and – and that I thought maybe Oliver could be..." She sighs. "We were doing that stuff, but I knew it wasn't right. I mean, it wasn't _wrong_ either but... But Oliver wasn't really there. Not with me. So I stopped it. He told me he wasn't thinking of you, but, I know he was lying, or, no, I know he just wasn't admitting it to himself. And I know more than all of that, that when Oliver lost you, he didn't only lose _you_."

My head is dipped and my eyes are welling, breath short and harsh. I try so hard not to cry in front of people, and I'm good at it. Not now though. Now, when Enid pulls me into her hug, I burst with crying. They shake me right into my skeleton.

"He loved you so much."

Finally we pull apart and she takes my hand back, pulling me along.

"C'mon, Carl. Let's get there."

We roller-skate down the whole stretch of road until we're at the junction before Hilltop. We replace our shoes, opting to walk through the forest to find it, and after a little while, we see through the tree-line a small compound-looking plot of land, probably about the size of the field was out front at the prison. The wall is made of thick wooden beams and a few Hilltop people are on top holding spears. Inside, over the wall, I see the top floor and roof of a big fancy-looking building, like a hotel or museum or something. Barrington House, Jesus said.

Savior trucks surround the front gate outside and this makes my heartbeat speed up. My hand is on my knife and we stop at the edge of the tree cover. "I don't think Negan is here," I tell Enid. "I don't see that black truck."

Bean sticks to her side, his eye watching them like a hawk. I spot Simon giving orders to the rest of his men, and my chest aches and stings at the same time.

"You weren't taking a drive," Enid tells me. "You weren't coming to get me."

I look at her. "I can't let him get away with this. You know I can't."

"I know."

"Come with me," I ask. "You wanna kill him, too. We can do it."

She shakes her head and stutters, and when she speaks her voice is very low. "You said it," she explains. "It would be for us. Not for Abraham. Not for Glenn. Not for Maggie, or Oliver..." She takes a small step closer to me, whispering now. "You're doing it for you."

I am. This is Negan's fault. Because he's taken everything from me, and what he's left behind, my dad and sister and Michonne and Alexandria, they're all still under his control. I can't live like that. I won't. I'd rather be dead than under him, so I just say, "Yeah."

Her stare snaps between bandage and eye; how Enid and Oliver can both look at me like I still have two is beyond me. When most people look at me I can see in their face they're thinking about it. _This boy has one eye._ Even if they don't realise it. Even I do it.

"So, it all goes right," she whispers, "and you do it..." Her eyes are big and staring right at me, and her breath is shallow. "How do you get away?"

"It wouldn't matter."

"It would to me."

There are a million ways to tell someone you love them, and there are a million more ways that you _can_ love someone, too. You can hug your parent, tell your friend they should put on a seatbelt, ask a girl to dance or sit and read comics with a boy until you fall asleep together. I think there are a million ways to say goodbye, too. But I'm only realising this now.

I tell Enid I love her, and I tell her goodbye, but I don't do it with words. My eye's shut, and gently, I knock our foreheads together. It's better this way, I tell myself. She'll be here, safe and with Maggie and Sasha and Bean, and maybe that is for me, like locking her in the closet was, like locking Oliver in the utility room was. Thing is, I'm doing this for her _in_ doing this for me, so I kiss her forehead, telling her in a new way... and then, after a second, I kiss her mouth too.

I understand it now; why Oliver kisses her like that. Like _this_. It does mean something, just not the same something I first thought. Enid is like fairy dust – soft and light and calm, and you never really know how long she'll be around but you know that she's here, right now, because you're flying.

Gently, she sets me down on the ground again and whispers, "Please don't go." And I don't say anything. "Just come with me," she asks, smiling in that miserable kind of way so she doesn't burst into tears. "You can. I – I don't wanna lose you, too—"

"I'm just gonna go home."

"You're lying."

"No," I tell her, "I'm not."

My eye's back on the Savior trucks. Enid sighs.

"You shouldn't go," she says, "but I can't stop you," and when I still don't look at her, she walks away towards Hilltop. Bean follows her.

"I'll see you," I say.

"No," Enid answers. "You won't."

My heart is sinking, because no... I probably won't.

When she is gone and nobody is looking, I sneak into a truck and huddle into a hidey-spot behind a crate of fruit and vegetables and scotch. There's a crate of guns beside me and I know what I'm going to do. I also know I'm not making it out of this, but I knew that already. I think a small part of me is counting on it. If I live through this, I'll go back to Judith and Dad and Michonne. I'll go back home. But if I die, maybe I'll see Oliver. Maybe that's how I'll find him. Maybe all the secret praying he did might pay off for the both of us, and being with him will be home to me, too.

There's only one thing I'm sure of...

I'm not dying until a bullet is in Negan's skull.

The truck starts up, and it isn't long after we're driving and the vehicle's shuddering under my knees and palms and my mind is racing a million miles a minute, that I realise I'm not alone. A box is opened, by the sounds of it, and when I peek over the crate I'm hidden behind, I see Jesus; him in his trench coat and his beanie hat, with a bottle of scotch in hand pouring away out the open back of the truck. He doesn't notice me.

"Hey."

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Heaven_ by Troye Sivan.

I think Carl has a thing about kissing people after they take him skating... sorry, I'm not funny. Still, this scene was so pure and cute I died and I couldn't not write it. In this fic, though, I kind of have it my head that Enid let him kiss her because she knew it was his 'goodbye I love you' kind of thing, hence why she "gently set him back on the ground again" hope that was clear enough ? ? idk I can't word xD

 _TLDR: __Carlnid is totally a thing in this it's just very platonic_

Plz don't hate me? XD

Question: What is your favourite song? Preferably something you can sing to someone else all quiet and calm and comfortable _*cough cough*_ possibly for a future Caliver scene maybe idk _*cough cough*_

As always,  
Happy reading.


	37. Sing Me a Song: Reek

**The Sorrowful Deity** xD I'm not even sorry. I'm just really confused about how I've managed this.

 **yozza** Thank you! And agh, that song! It was a little too upbeat for the scene I had in mind BUT it's perfect for another scene I have in my head, so thank you so much! I can't stop imagining Oliver dancing to it when he thinks nobody is looking and Carl just grinning his ass off at him through the crack in the door xDD And to answer: I actually hadn't read the comics (I don't have the money so I read when and what I can online sometimes, but mostly get information from social media) so it came as a huge shock to me, but I see where you're coming from. Although I cannot agree. I really need Aaron not to die, ever xD I'm far too attached to his ass. He's precious and needs hugs and love. Also, if he was killed off then fans would be mad that they'd killed another gay character and that's just a shit storm I don't need to see exploding all over my phone screen all over again. It was bad enough with Denise. I also think Spence may have been killed so that fans would feel pretty stoked about his death, and then have this self-assessing moment of, "Oh God, I'm a monster" for feeling so happy about it xD I feel like I do that a lot when I watch the show xD I either feel like crying my eyeballs out or I feel like I should put myself down before I hurt somebody xD Sorry tldr: I am personally not mad or dissatisfied that Sencer died and I was hugely disturbed but in a good way xD

 **RHatch89** You're awesome ^.^

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** xDD I've missed you

 **Asia Saunders** That what honestly the sweetest thing I've ever read. I put down my phone and just sat with my elbows on the kitchen table and my hands over my mouth staring out the window for a solid five minutes before I remembered how to function properly again. Okay. So. I have to admit. I'm too scared to write it with your song. Honestly. Now that I know it would be based on something as pure and soulful as that I'm afraid I'll ruin it for you somehow, in some small detail that will disappoint. So I gotta let you keep your song. Keep it and hold onto it and argh. Do that, please. God, I'm never going to hear Loving You and not want to happy cry ever agan xD Thank you infinitely for sharing though. That was so beautiful.

 **DampishPoet** Thank you x 1. Love that one. 2. Ugh, that one, too! 3. Honestly, Lana, marry me? 4. !I had this one on repeat for days wtf! 5. Ooh, I like that one, too (I only just remembered to put it on because I forgot after Nobody Loves Me Like You). Thank you for the suggestions, my personal playlist has been added to xD oh god... DAMPISH! STOP WRITING CALIVER SMUT! STOP IT! IT'S NEGROPHILIC AND UNHOLY AND I'M LOSING SLEEP!

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

We're still hiding.

Me and Jesus.

The truck is parked but we aren't at the Sanctuary. Had to stop for a bunch of walkers, as far as I can tell; some kind of diversion mistake. "Still going," one Savior says. He's talking to another guy. I haven't gotten a look at their faces yet. "Looks like the end of them, though."

"All damn night. At least Negan's smart enough not to let that mess anywhere near us." They start talking about someone called Fat Joe and cake, and then about rigging headways and warfare and demo sticks and the RPGs from us last month. Finally, someone says, "Let's go."

"Thank Christ."

They climb out and get in front, starting up. As we drive, Jesus and I emerge from our hiding spots. Jesus checks outside and watches the straggling walkers, then slices open the bottom of the liquor box. I heard Gregory wasn't happy about letting it go. I also heard Gregory isn't happy about a lot of things. Jesus said it was okay, that Maggie and Sasha have a home there through Maggie's pregnancy, which he says is going fine.

Jesus is spilling a bottle of washing liquid out the back of the truck and I frown at him. He explains: "Making a trail. I think we're close. We should bail out, follow the rest of the way, see what we can see."

"I, uh..." This whole time I've been trying to figure out his game plan, what he wants to do, how he can be useful to me, and if he won't be. . .then how to get rid of him. I ask, "How?"

"It isn't usually the fall that gets us," he tells me. "It's trying to fight it. Run with it or roll with it, the truck's going slow enough. We'll be in the blind spot. We can race behind one of the other cars."

I'm stuttering because I can't go with him. Not after how far I've gotten.

I stall.

"I-if I screw up and we get caught—"

"It'll be fine," Jesus cuts me off. He's confident. I trust him completely that jumping won't kill us, still, I'm not about to do it for anything, let alone some guy with longer hair than me and a nickname like _Jesus_. Quickly, he says, "We just gotta go now."

"Okay," I say, jolting to the truck. "Show me first."

He does, leaping through the tarp and disappearing into thin air. I step to the back and see him already ducked behind a car, and I wave. . .

"Sorry, man."

* * *

We're here, I think. The truck is going slower. Through the tarp, I see flitters of this place, wherever it is. North, east, south, west – no clue. There's not enough sun to see either.

I'm starting to wonder if I'm in over my head.

There are walkers, some are just severed heads, strung up on long poles, or whole writhing bodies tied to posts and chains. They're guard dogs, I think, and as we drive through the courtyard, I can't see much else because the truck leaves a thick dust cloud.

In a big case next to me, there's a machine gun. It's big. Half my size. I stuff it with a full magazine and the truck squeaks to a stop. We're parked in another courtyard, outside of the guard dog enclosure, though I can still see its open gate out the back. I hide.

"Okay, boys."

Negan's voice makes my stomach drop out of my ass.

"Let's get this haul unloaded and inside," he tells everyone. "I want to get back in there and _unload_ a little myself."

"Negan, need to talk to you about redirect."

"What about the redirect?"

"It got screwed up. We're on it now, but it's a mess out there."

"And whose job was that?"

Someone is tying the tarp back. I'm ducked behind boxes with the machine gun poking through. My muscles are stone. But I've done this before.

"Aw, damn," one Savior complains. "I thought they packed this up tight."

"Ah, no worries," Negan says. "Plenty more where this came from."

They're laughing, climbing up. I'm going to kill them. I'm going to kill them. One guy picks up the box of liquor and every bottle falls and smashes at his feet.

"Son of a bitch!"

Someone else laughs. The guy bends down, turns, sees me.

"What the—"

Blood scatters across his chest and throat and face and his dead body flies backwards. I see an outhouse, a fence, and another man running away.

"Stay back!" I shout, stood at the edge of the trunk now, machine gun up and swinging. "Drop your weapons! I only want Negan." Men are glaring at me, their hands up, feet shuffling. "He killed my friends! No one else needs to die."

There's whistling.

"Fuck!" Negan walks across the courtyard, weaving in and out of his Saviors. " _You_ are _adorable_." He grabs a tall guy with a beard and tied back brown hair, using him as a barrier. Even from here, I know I'll miss. "Did you pick that gun 'cause it looks cool? You totally fucking did, right?"

Negan laughs.

"Kid, I ain't gonna lie, you scare the fucking _shit_ outa me."

That's when someone runs at me and I shoot holes in their chest, but I'm not fast enough to stop someone else coming in at my side, colliding with me so violently I yelp when we hit the dirt. It's Dwight. A dust cloud comes up around us and I try to kick and shove, but he's got my machine gun to my forehead and a fist against my chest. He yells, " _KID!_ " at me. My hands come up.

"Dwight. Back off."

He does as told, and steals my knife and sheath right out of my belt. The second guy I shot is dead next to us. Slowly, Negan steps over, grinning down at me.

"Is that any way to treat our new guest?"

He holds out a gloved hand.

"Come on, kid. I'll show you around."

My heart's beating in my throat. No, not just beating. _Pounding._ I'm terrified. But I'll screw a corpse before I let it show.

"You know, you do the same damn stink-eye as your dad," Negan points, "except it's only half as good 'cause well, you know, you're missing an eye." He chuckles and I look away. He doesn't appreciate it: "Really? You're really not gonna take my hand? 'Cause you're lucky you even still have a hand. Same as your boy Daryl over here..."

Ahead, I notice the man behind the fence, gripping it, staring with a spear in hand and an 'A' painted over his overalls. It's Daryl. The help.

"Now that I think about it. How's the job going, Daryl? Hot enough for you? Yeah, it'd be tough with one arm." Negan laughs and turns back to me, hand out. I don't want to, but I take it. " _Ah,_ smart kid. Now, come with me," he says. I grab my hat back and fit it on my head. It's coated in dust. "Dwighty-boy, why don't you grab Daryl, take him to the kitchen, do a little grub prep."

Dwight's tight and scarred up face nods.

"New plan, boys!" Negan tells the rest. "Let's burn the dead, unload the truck later. Damn, I am not gonna have time to fuck any of my wives today." He turns to Dwight and puts up a finger. "I mean, maybe one."

Dwight yanks Daryl along. I try to make eye contact with him but Negan's grinning at me and I have to glare back. He walks around me.

"Come on," he says over the growling. I hear a door shut while the others go through. It's a big building. Huge. A factory, I think. With big chimneys and a tall fire escape on one side. The metal doors are rusty and there's nothing green in sight.

"What're you gonna do to me?" I ask.

Negan turns to me slowly, and when I see his face it's all folded up like he's tasted something bitter. "Number one," he says, " _do not_ shatter my image of you." I don't understand what this means until he says, "You're a _fucking badass_. You're not scared of shit. Don't be scared of me. It's a disappointment."

It confuses me when I realise I actually don't _want_ to disappoint him.

"Number two," he goes on, "you really want me to ruin the surprise?"

I don't say anything.

"Fuck you, kid." Negan winks at me. "Seriously. Fuck you."

He takes my shoulder and pulls me towards the building. Inside is a large warehouse on a below floor. It's cold. My fingers are numb and mist leaves my nose. The windows cover most outside walls, but they're all so dirty they make the whole factory look dull and grey and old. I can hear a lot of people talking on the ground floor.

"Check this out," Negan says in my ear, then steps forward to the banister to overlook them all. Immediately, they all fall silent and kneel. Every one of them. I look but I don't see Daryl anywhere. Negan speaks out: "The Saviors have gone out into the world and fought the dead and come back with some really good stuff. Some of that stuff can be yours, if you work hard and play by the rules. Today, everybody gets fresh vegetables at dinner. No. Points. Needed."

They all clap and cheer. Negan turns to me and leans back against the railing; I imagine it snapping and him plunging to his death. Doesn't happen.

"You see that?" I'm asked. He speaks through his teeth, biting every syllable. " _Respect._ Cool, huh?" He leans close and whispers, "They still on their knees?" They are. He tips back and shouts, "Asyouwere!" and they bustle to life again, standing and chatting. Negan walks around me and I step towards the railing, touch it, _carefully,_ like it might snap now just to spite me.

Respect.

"Come on, kid," Negan grins. "Wanna show you something."

* * *

I'm taken deep into the factory. The hallways are clean and decorated down here. The further we go the nicer it gets, more light, too. This place is backwards, a paradox; you can expect anything and it's always going to be something else. There is an open double door to the right and I follow Negan through.

"Ladies..."

There are. Lots of them. They're all dressed in tight black dresses and lacey high heels, and either frown, stare, or ignore us. I look somewhere else desperately. Couches. Lots of those, too, in here; the small ones made for one or two people at once. A few plants are dotted around, and some lamps, and over in the corner is a big liquor cabinet. The windows are still that same dull filth colour. My eye's drawn back to skin again. I count six. Six women.

"Don't mind the kid," Negan says. I look at the ground. "I know," he groans at me. "Every woman where you're from dresses like they do the books at an auto shop... You're gonna wanna look at their titties."

The worst thing is, it's kind of true. Not that I act on it, much.

"It's cool," Negan reassures me, even though my eye's firm-set on his face now. "I won't mind. They won't mind. Knock yourself out."

I don't. He moves away to a brunette woman on the couch to our right who's sitting with a blonde woman, consoling her, by the looks. I put my eye on my boots. Stick it there. It stays.

"Can I talk to you for a minute, dear wife?" Negan is saying to the brunette woman. I glance up once and see her go across the room. Before Negan joins her, he jostles my elbow, tells me, "Make yourself comfortable, kid."

Again, I don't. If there is any place on earth I could feel the least amount of comfort, it's here. These women look like the girls in those centrefolds I used to read with Oliver late at night in my cell in secret, when we'd put one of my comics behind the centrefolds to cover the front page in case anybody came in and saw what we were looking and whispering about. We'd look at the girls and we'd say what we liked about them and what we'd do with them and it made us feel better even though we never told each other why, even though we liked the fact that we were looking at them _together_ more than the actual looking at them. We used to do that. _Jesus,_ we actually used to do that.

I don't look but I see the ginger woman at twelve o'clock, staring right at me with a far away look on her face. Her dress is short and her legs are crossed to the side. At ten o'clock, two women are sitting quietly on another couch playing cards. One has long brown hair and the other short. Closer, at nine thirty, is a curvy woman with wavy black hair and dark brown skin and a neck-line low enough around her chest I hold my breath and have to keep on not looking again. She's staring down at her lap like she's trying to turn invisible. Then, finally, at two forty-five, is the blond woman who's still crying. At least, I think she is. I can't really make sense of this.

Negan and the brunette woman are talking over by the liquor, drinking and whispering. I can't hear them. Not much, at least, just something about a man called Mark and something else about rules. He touches her chin. I hear him ask her, "I ever hit one of you?"

"No," she says. "But I know you. There's worse."

He looks like he's laughing but I can't be sure. The woman ahead is still staring at me without staring at me and I think I'm going to burst into flames, so I look at the floor again. Negan is coming over. He pushes a beer bottle into my hand and closes my fingers around it. I don't drink any. He steps over to the blond woman. Her face crinkles up, and she starts shaking so hard her hair shudders over her wrists.

"Amber, baby," he says, sitting on a chair in front of her. She's his wife, too? Wait, are they all? He takes her hands and this tiny high-pitched noise comes out of her throat. Negan smiles. "You know I don't want anyone here that doesn't want to be here, right?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Oh," he coos, "so if you want to leave and go back to Mark, you can. But what can't you do?"

"Cheat on you—"

" _That_ is exactly fucking right." He gets in her face, slowly, talking through his teeth again only now he sounds poisonous. "You. _Can't._ Fucking. Cheat on me. There's plenty of other gals who would love to take your place, _and_ there's a few job openings that I can think of. You want to go back to Mark and your mom? Hell, I'll put you all on the same job."

"No." She's crying. "I'll stay. I'm—I'm sorry."

He touches her chin.

"You know what that means, right?" Even though she's nodding Negan says it twice.

"Ye—yes. I love you, Negan."

"Oh, of course you do, darlin'. I don't know why you're crying. It's all gonna work out aces for you." He strokes her cheek and I think of last month with Enid and Davey. My feet shift on the floor. Negan looks at me and grins. I don't know what I look like anymore. I've never seen something like this before. I've never seen someone treat someone like this. He kisses Amber's forehead, then gets up and asks the brunette woman, "Will you get Carson for me?"

"Yeah."

"Did you see that?" he asks her. "Wasn't hard on her, even though I am _very_ hard in general."

She ignores the way he thrusts his hips in her direction.

"You're an asshole."

"I _know,_ " he growls, getting close, winding around her back like a snake. "But the fucked up thing is, you like me anyway. You know the truth, just like me."

They kiss. It's the kind of kiss you do in private. The kind of secret kiss I've never seen from an outsider's point of view. No. No, this isn't like the kisses I know about at all. She might be kissing him back but there's no 'like' in it anywhere. It's stale and tainted and cold. I look away. Negan points at the door, still kissing, and I look, see Dwight. . . and Daryl.

I startle. Daryl looks at me. I look back. We say nothing but I hear everything and everything is not okay. He's holding a tray of food; cheese and grapes and other things with cocktail sticks through them that make my mouth water. But it's hard to keep an appetite when your friend has been held hostage for a month and this is the closest you've been to them since.

Negan and his wife are still kissing. When they pull apart and look at us his wife turns away and stands exactly still, staring at the window. Negan chuckles and walks over to us. He looks Daryl in the eye while he takes a cocktail stick, stabs an olive, and stuffs it in his mouth with a sigh.

"Carl, will you grab this tray for me?"

I put down the beer and take it, and when Daryl and I look at each other I whisper, "Jesus," as quietly as I can, and Daryl just stares. Dwight's hand's still clenched into the back of his clothes, so I nod a tiny bit. I don't know if he'll understand but he seems to because his eyes are narrow and worried. He looks at Negan.

"Why d'you got him here?"

" _Whoa!_ " Negan barks, snapping his eyes away from Dwight, who he'd been staring down. "What we talk about when you're not here is none of your business." He grins at his wife, then turns back. "Do not make me put this toothpick through the _only_ eye he has."

Daryl keeps his mouth closed. I stare at him, disoriented. Daryl is told to go with Dwight, that he'll get him a mop while "Dwighty boy" fires up the furnace.

"I'll be down in a few," Negan tells him. "Time for a little déjà vu."

Dwight swallows.

"Come on, kid."

As I'm taken away, Daryl whispers, "Get away," into my ear.

* * *

Inside Negan's bedroom, everything is that same grey colour. Only it's strange in here; more sharp and vibrant, almost. There's a four-poster bed and a sitting area with a couch facing two armchairs, a coffee table in between. The shelves and curtains match and the windows are clean, and on the wall behind the armchairs is a taxidermized animal head. I don't know what animal it is though; it's some kind of antelope. African, I think – Oliver would know. He liked African wildlife.

Dammit.

I hate that about me now. He's so etched in my head I don't go ten minutes without thinking about him in some way or another. I reek of Oliver.

Negan throws his scarf on the bed and shuts the door behind us, and when I speak, I speak very quietly. . . "Are all of those women actually your..."

"Wives?" he asks. "Yeah. Always wanted to fuck a whole bunch of different women—I mean, why settle for just one? Why follow the same old rules? Why not make life better?"

I keep my mouth shut.

"Speaking of, sit." He motions me to set the tray down on the coffee table and I take a seat opposite him in the armchair. "Let's get started."

"Started on what?" I ask.

Negan chuckles. "I want to get to know you a little better, Carl."

"Why?"

"Work it out," he tells me. "You're smart. In fact, I'm gonna tell you just how smart you are, in case you don't already know. See, I'd expect a kid your age to be moping around, not doing a damn thing, except crying about missing the prom. But _you?_ You go on a mission. You find me, you _kill_ two of my men, and you're smart enough to know, that

I'm

not

gonna

let

this

slide."

I push the strangle of dread away.

Negan giggles into his fingers. "Ah, I can't—I can't do it," he says. "It's like talking to a birthday present. You gotta take that crap off your face." His hands bawl to fists like a kid begging for candy, and with wide eyes, he groans, "I wanna see what Grandma got me!"

"No."

"TWO MEN!"

I was right, before: Negan has the kind of voice that changes colour. It goes from playful pink to flashing red so fast I flinch inside. I read somewhere that colours have their own wavelength, and red light is the hardest to scatter by air molecules. That's why people use it in danger signals; those ones with an exclamation mark or a skull or a lightning bolt inside. That's Negan, now. A bright red danger signal.

"Two men," he repeats, only his red turns to black. An absence of light altogether – an absence of air, it feels; he's sucking it out of the whole room. I'm breathing slow, trying not to suffocate. "Punishment," he says. "Do you really want to piss me off?"

I take a steep breath.

Negan is giggling while I remove my hat and unwrap my head, telling me, "Almost _there,_ " in a croaky excited voice that makes me clench my teeth. Apart from getting my eye changed and treated, I haven't shown it to anyone. None but Oliver that night last month. He saw it and he touched it and I let him. Jeez, I asked him to. I _thanked_ him for it, right while I – _God,_ I said nobody else could see it and he told me nobody else needed to except we didn't say those parts out loud, we just. . . we just _fucked_.

Finally, I slip the bandage away. It's so damp with sweat and dirt it makes a squelching sound. I should have changed it. It's been almost three days now. _God,_ I should've changed it. Shame punches me in the face and I look at the floor. Negan tells me, "Get that hair out of your face. Let me see."

I brush it behind my ear, and when I see the look on Negan's face I can't hold my own still anymore.

"Fucking _Christ!_ " he cries. "That is disgusting. No wonder you cover that up. Have you seen it? I mean, have you _looked_ in the mirror? That is _gross as fuck._ I can see your _socket_. . . I wanna touch it. Oh, come on, can I touch it?"

I'm crying.

" _Damn._ Holy fuck, kid." Negan looks spooked, all of a sudden, like he doesn't know what to do. He sighs. "Look... I just— It's easy to forget that you're, just a kid."

I sniff, sinking through the couch, turning black, too; devoid of colour and light and air. I can't breathe.

"And I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or anything," Negan is saying. "I was just fucking around—"

"Just forget it," I whisper.

Someone knocks on the door.

"Come in."

I keep my face down while someone enters.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, sir, but uh, you left Lucille out by the truck."

"Seriously? I never do that, I guess a kid firing a machine gun is a little bit of a distraction." He points to me so I look up through my fringe. "All jokes aside, you look rad as hell. I wouldn't cover that shit up. It may not be a hit with the ladies, but I swear to you, _no one_ is gonna fuck with you looking like that. No, sir."

I don't want this to make me feel better but it does.

"Fat Joseph, did you carry her all the way up here for me?"

"Yes, sir."

He takes Lucille back. "Were you gentle? Were you kind?"

"Uh..."

"Did you treat her like a lady?"

"Mm, yes. Yes, sir."

"Did you pet her little pussy like a lady?"

Joseph says nothing and Negan caws another laugh.

"I'm just fucking around, man. A baseball bat doesn't have a pussy!"

After a moment, Joseph laughs, too. He's got Dad's gun.

"Get the hell out," Negan snaps, and Joseph falls silent and leaves immediately. When the door is shut Negan grins at me. "Now, you see? That's what I'm talking about. Men breaking each other's balls. This is the shit _your dad's_ supposed to be teaching you."

He sighs, leant forward on his knees now.

"What do you like to do for fun? You like music?"

I don't reply.

Negan tells me, "I want you to sing me a song."

Slowly, I unfurl my eyebrows and look at him. "What?"

"Yeah," he says. "You mowed down two of my men with a machine gun. I want something in _return_ for that. Sing me a song."

"I, I— I can't think of any."

" _Bullshit!_ " he yells. "What'd your mom used to sing you? What'd your dad play in the car?"

He stands over me and aims Lucille at my skull.

"Start. _Fucking._ Singing."

"Okay, okay," I gasp out quietly, swallowing, racking my brain, and I have a song, I do, but I don't want to sing it. Not to Negan. I only sang it once before and the first time I remembered I thought it wasn't real. But it is real, that night Pete and Deanna's husband died, that night I listened to Oliver play his ukulele and we danced together and I sang to him. I can't think of anything else. "Okay, uh... _Yo—_ "

I wince, and my voice is dry and wobbliy.

 _"You,_ uh, _are my sunshine..."_

"Go on."

 _"...my only sunshine.  
You make me happy, when skies are grey."_

There's a grunt as Lucille swings through the air.

I flinch.

" _Do not_ let me distract you, young man," Negan orders.

I swallow, blink away tears, sing, _"You'll never know..."_

He swings again. I shudder.

 _"...dear, how much_ – I love you.  
 _So – please don't take my sunshine away."_

I'm crying again, reeking with him even worse than before. Oliver is all over me. He's wound through my hair and weaved between my fingers, fitting under my clothes, hiding inside my socket, and my heart is breaking all over again.

"That's pretty fucking good," Negan tells me. "Lucille _loves_ being sung to. It's about the only thing she loves more than bashing in brains. Weird, huh?"

He sits on the coffee table, voice all soft and gentle now.

"Did your mother sing that to you? Where is she now?"

I just shake my head and sniff.

"Damn. Dead, huh? You see it happen?"

"I shot her," I sniff, "before it could..."

" _Damn,_ no wonder you're a little serial killer in the making." Again, that hurts. Everything does right now. It hurts to breathe and it hurts to blink and it hurts to think, and then it hurts even worse because Negan leans close and says, "That was an example of breaking balls, by the way."

I don't look at him. Can't.

"Come on, kid. Get up. It should be ready."

"What should be ready?" I whisper; whispering is all I can manage anymore.

Negan gives me a very serious look then. . .

"The iron."

* * *

I'm holding Lucille.

"You know the deal," Negan is telling everybody, stood on the catwalk overlooking the large cement furnace. Saviors are down there, waiting. "What's about to happen is gonna be hard to watch. I don't want to do it. I wish I could just ignore the rules and let it slide, but I can't. Why?"

Every Savior yells back: "The rules keep us alive."

Negan leads me down the spiral staircase.

"That. Is. Right," he says. "We survive. We provide security to others. We bring civilization back to this world. We are the Saviors. But we can't do that without rules. Rules are what make it _all_ work. I know it's not easy. But there's always work. There is always a cost. Here, if you try to SKIRT IT, IF YOU TRY TO CUT THAT CORNER!"

He chuckles dryly.

"Then it is the iron for you."

They're all brought to their feet again and Negan walks through the crowd to the furnace. I feel like every pair of eyes in the room is on my socket. He didn't let me wrap it up. I keep my head down.

There's a man, who has more people looking at him than I do, I think. He's sitting slumped in a chair directly in front of the flames. Dwight is manning the iron inside with a long, hooked pipe. The guy in the chair is afraid; shaking his leg and biting his lips. Negan pats his shoulder.

"Mark, I'm sorry," he says, putting on protective gloves. He takes the iron. "But it is what it is."

Amber is crying, stood to the side with the brunette wife, Sherry, and three other wives. The iron moves in Negan's gloved hand, glowing. I get a flash-black of Oliver screaming, his arm melting, the blood and skin and smoke, and then I snap back to now because the sizzling and Mark's wails come at me all in one. I watch it happen, horrified, and Daryl is here, too, watching me watch it happen. I can feel my face all twisted up and I try to harden it. Daryl looks back to the punishment and I do, too. Smoke fills the whole building. I want to look away but I don't. Mark is still screaming, screaming and screaming until he blacks out.

The air smells of pork and train stations and I'll either burst into tears or throw up, only I do neither. I'm furious. Negan squeals.

"Ah, that wasn't so bad, now, was it?" he asks. Mark's head is dipped and skin is oozing down his cheek. Negan grimaces. "Jesus. He pissed himself." He steps over to Daryl, who I'm staring at now, and whispers, "Clean that up," into his ear, then turns to the crowd. "Doc, I'm all done. Do your thing."

Mark is taken away. His face is still smoking.

"Well, pussy passed out," Negan speaks to everyone. "But it's settled, we're square. Everything is cool. Let Mark's face be a daily reminder to him and to everyone else that the rules matter. I _hope_ that we all learned something today, because I don't _ever_ want to have to do that again."

He stands next to me.

"Pretty fucking crazy shit, huh?" he growls into my ear. "You probably think I'm a lunatic."

I glare at him. If there was any part of me that respected him before it's gone now. Completely. I think of Glenn and Abraham and I remember how much Negan needs to die.

"Come on." He takes my shoulder. "Let's go figure out what to do with you."

* * *

Back in Negan's room, we sit opposite each other while he writes things in a notebook. It's been a few minutes and I can't keep still. Negan knows it, too. He's enjoying it.

"Can I wrap up my face now?"

"No, you absolutely fucking cannot."

"Why the fuck not?!"

The word feels good out of my mouth, especially when I aim it at his face.

"Whoa. Ho, ho... Look at this bad mother fucker." His face turns hard. "You can't because I'm not done with you. And I _like_ looking at your disgusting, rad-ass, badass eye, so it's staying out."

I stare at him.

"What? You got something to say?"

"Why haven't you killed me? Or my dad, or Daryl?"

"Daryl is gonna make a good soldier for me," Negan answers. "You see, he thinks he's holding it together but you saw it. Your dad? He's already getting me great stuff. You, on the other hand... well, we shall see."

His eyes narrow in thought.

"It's more productive to break you," he says. "More fun, too. You thinking that's stupid?"

It's more that I've had time to think this through. I have and now I've got an upper hand, maybe, because I know how fragile this is. How fragile _Negan_ is, so I say, "I'm thinking we're different."

" _Mm._ You're a smart kid," he says, clasping his hands together. "What do you think I should do? You know I can't let you go. So, do I kill you? Iron your face? Chop off your arm? Tell me." My blood is boiling and my chest is thrumming. "What do you think?"

Suddenly, I'm on my feet, stood over him with the coffee table between us.

"I think you should jump out the window to save me the trouble of killing you."

" _Oh!_ " Negan claps. "Now, _there_ is the kid that impressed the _hell_ out of me!"

My head tilts. "I think you're not saying what you're gonna do to me because you're not going to do anything. If you knew us, if you knew anything, you _would_ kill us." I point and smirk. "But you _can't_."

" _Hoo..._ "

He's looking at me like he's never seen a boy before.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I can't." He claps his hands together and stands up to grab Lucille. "Let's go for a ride, kid."

* * *

We're in a truck, two more trucks joining us. Negan parks by the gate in the middle of the walker guard enclosure. They reach but they can't get far with their chains.

Negan shouts, "Daryl!" out the window. I'm looking for any sign of Jesus, but I don't see anything. Daryl comes to the door, his face pinched up. "You seem worried," Negan tells him, "so I'm taking the kid home."

"If you do anything to him—"

"Dwight! Daryl needs a time-out. Put him back in his box for a while."

The back of Daryl's collar is grabbed and he's dragged back towards the factory. Negan follows the other vehicles out. The drive is long and bitter and anxious on my side. On Negan's it's all grins. I'm pretty sure we are going back to Alexandria. He's brought others with him. He wouldn't drag me out to the middle of nowhere with a bunch of his Saviors just to kill me, would he? But I guess they wouldn't have to. They could do anything to me. They could use me as bait, dangle me in front of Dad's nose on a string, get him to beg like a dog again. They could tie me to a tree and light it on fire, let the flames and the walkers eat me up. They could cut me into pieces and pass me around for dinner, or worse, not cut me up at all, pass me around anyway. . .

They.

Could.

Do.

Anything.

But they haven't got a reason to. Not really. Negan's getting what he wants. He already has me in here with him and taking me back in one piece is just another upper hand he's going to have over Dad's head. Something else Dad will 'owe him' for. Shit. I should never have come here. I've made everything worse. I can hear him in my head, Oliver, telling me, "You fucked up, man. You fucked up so hard."

When I'm close to crying again, Negan looks over and asks me to sing another song, but tells me he's joking right before I'm about to scream at him. I think I'm sulking when I return my eye back to the dashboard, but I think there has to be a different word for it when you're this furious, _this_ ashamed.

"You didn't get much of an eyeful of my wives earlier," Negan says at some point. I stay quiet, so he scoffs. "I know you only got one and all but that doesn't make you fucking blind."

I don't look at him.

"What, my ladies not good enough for you?"

I'm shaking my head, frowning, murmuring, "It's not that."

"You got something better to go home to?"

Again, I say nothing.

" _Oh..._ " Negan says. "It's that little home-slice Davey was talking to before, huh?"

"No," I say smally. "Somebody else."

Negan frowns curiously.

He asks, "This lucky gal got a name?"

And I say, "Oliver."

For a second, Negan's eyebrows get flung through the roof. I stare out the window. I haven't felt this before – at least not in a long time. There was one time I remember vaguely, out in the woods when Dad asked to speak to Oliver alone the night after he and Carol saved us from Terminus. I knew Dad was going to confront Oliver about us. I felt like the forest was falling out from under me. That's how this feels, now, like the floor's getting torn out along the road. Negan laughs so loud I glare at him.

" _Damn,_ I did _not_ expect _that,_ " Negan says. "You mo?"

"Am I _what?_ "

"Mo?" he repeats. "Homo?"

Grimacing, I just turn away and stare at the dashboard.

"So much for shattering my image of you," Negan says.

"Screw your image of me."

"Fucking _right,_ kid!" he cheers, which I wasn't expecting. "You..." He makes a fist with his hand and shakes it in front of him. " _...beat_ those stereotypes. All that equality shit."

I can't tell if he's serious or not so I ignore him.

"Oh, you gotta introduce us. I wanna meet him," Negan insists. I don't say anything. I'm not really sure what's happening. " _Aw,_ now don't be a fucking fruit. I won't judge. Hey, no shaming here. You're into what you're into. No changing that. Unless it's kids or animals, then that's just fucked up."

"He's gone," I explain, trailing. "You – you can't meet him, he's..."

"Oh..." Negan has the same look on his face as when he made me cry. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

I grit my teeth.

"You put him down, too? Like your mom?"

My head shakes.

"Oliver's jus' gone," I say.

There are a few seconds of silence.

"Well," Negan grunts, "if you won't sing for me again, and if you're gonna keep being so fucking vague, I'll just make my own entertainment." He starts pressing buttons on the radio. "It's the start of a whole new world, kid!" It's static, and he turns it up full blast. It's so loud I grunt and start to cover my ears. Negan stops me. "No. Listen. This is it..."

He grins.

"The Big Bang, _itself!_ "

* * *

At home, Negan uses Lucille to knock five times on the door. Olivia answers. He marches right past her, whistling that whistle. Lucille isn't a vampire, I decide. If she was she would need an invitation inside. Olivia looks horrified.

"Carl, where's—"

"Enid's fine," I say quickly, and I'm about to ask if Michonne's home yet, but Negan speaks over me.

"Great, great, great, great, great, great!" He's circling the living room. "Where's Rick?"

"Uh, I—I'm just—" Olivia stutters.

" _Don't care,_ " he says in the same tone as the whistle. "Where's Rick?"

"Um, out scavenging for you," she says.

" _Cool._ " He grins at her. "I'll wait."

"Um... h-he went out pretty far. They might not be back today," Olivia explains. "We're running really low on everything. We're practically starving here."

Negan looks at her and leans back on his hips, then asks, "Starving? You?" My skin curls and my eyebrows knit into a frown. "By 'practically'—" Negan uses air quotes. "—you mean 'not really'."

Olivia bursts into tears.

Negan laughs and turns around to me, asks, " _Really?_ " and I stare at him. Still, he walks over. "You people seriously don't have a sense of humour."

 _Screw you,_ I think.

He sighs at my silence, then walks back over to her. "Excuse me. What's your name again?"

" _Olivia._ "

"Right. Olivia." He touches her arm and she turns to him slowly. "I am sorry for having been so rude to you just now. And it looks like I'm gonna be here for a while, awaiting your _fearless_ leader's return. And if you'd like, I think it would be enjoyable, to fuck your brains out. I mean, if, you know, you're agreeable to—"

She slaps him.

Negan jostles, then shakes his head like he's not sure that really happened. When he takes a step closer to her I tense up. If he touches her, I'll punch him in the back of the neck. But he just says, "I am about fifty percent more into you now. Just sayin'."

Olivia's terrified.

He backs off.

"Alright, well, I'm just gonna put my feet up and wait for my stuff to get here. Olivia, would you be a lamb and make us a little lemonade? Now, I know I left you all some of that good powdered stuff."

"I'm supposed to be with—"

" _Make it!_ " he barks, then goes calm again. "Make it. Take your time. Make it good."

She staggers to the door and leaves us.

"Alright, kid!" Negan cheers. "Take me on the grand tour."

* * *

Negan finds the music player first, puts on a Janis Martin album.

 _'I'll trade you my heart for your heart, baby,  
I'll give you all my kisses to boot.'_

"And you told me you didn't know songs, kid."

"They aren't mine."

They aren't. They're Oliver's. A mix he gave me four months ago. I've played it so much some songs are scratched now. It's one of the last things I have left of him after I trashed the aftermath of what the Saviors did to his bedroom. Once, only a few days after Oliver's birthday, we laid shoulder to shoulder with our backs to the floor and our feet up against the wall with this song on. I shone a flashlight up at the ceiling and we made hand puppets that sang along together.

 _'I'll trade you my heart for your heart, baby,  
I'll give you all my kisses to boot.  
If you feel you'd like to make a deal,  
cock your pistol and rooty-toot-toot.'_

Negan likes our carpets, since there are none where he comes from. He takes off his shoes and wiggles his toes into wool and nylon. He likes my dart board, too, and he hits bull's eye every time.

 _'Bang-bang-bang, bang-bang-bang.  
Bang-bang-bang.  
Bang-bang-bang.  
Bang-bangedy-bang.  
Bang-bangedy-bang.  
Bang-bangedy-bang.'_

I take him around the house. Our taps are "fascinating" and our coffee maker is "inspiring."

"How about this room?"

"Oh, i-it's just a water heater," I lie.

"Are you serious, kid?" Crap. He's on to me. "Come on."

He opens the door and sure enough Judith is stood at the edge of her cot, looking up to us. She's tired after a nap, and she spends a second staring up at the tall, dark stranger. Me, too. I stare at both of them, and Lucille. Especially Lucille. He hands her over to me. I'm so anxious I can't keep my fingers still around the handle.

"Oh-ho, _my_..." Negan coos, picking my little sister up with Patty Catty squashed between their chests. She whimpers. "Look at this little _angel._ Oh- _ho-ho..._ "

I use up all my energy trying to think Negan out of existence while he carries my baby sister downstairs and out onto the porch, but he's still here. He's still here while he sits in the rocking chair with her in his lap, asking me to sit next to him. He's still here while he's humming mine and Oliver's goofy _Bang Bang_ song, tainting it, changing it in my head like he has _You Are My Sunshine_ , like he has everything else. Even Judith, who is curled up to his chest now and has started to fall asleep. He's changing Dad in her head to him, saying, "Oh, this little girl is precious," and there's nothing I can do about it. Nothing while Tobin walks past and double takes. Nothing while Negan tells him, "Hey, neighbour. Why don't you come by later? We might grill out."

Nothing at all.

"Oh, I like it here. Mm-hmm. I might just have to stay here. You know, I was thinking about what you said earlier, Carl." He's talking to me through Judith, setting her on his knee and swaying her side to side, grinning, and she's grinning back. "Maybe it is stupid keeping you and your dad alive. I mean, why am I trying so hard? Maybe I should just bury you both down in one of those flower beds.

Huh?

And then I could just settle into the suburbs.

What

do

you

think

about

that?"

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Bang Bang_ by Janis Martin.

Two years. Two years, I've been waiting to write this chapter. . .

I don't know if it's obvious but Carl more or less has recovered from his amnesia by now. I know a lot of you were waiting for a big _'and then he knew'_ moment but when I tried writing it like that, it felt forced and troapy. Not even Carl's ever going to fully acknowledge it. He's kind of permanently holding himself accountable for not remembering it all fast enough, I think, and he'll likely always feel like he's missed out on too much to fully believe he's come back from it, idk, even though he kind of has. I guess that some love stories are always always a bit tragic.

In the next chapter I answer the question: How far can an author morally go about writing nswf without it actually being smut?

Oh dear.

As always,  
Happy reading.


	38. Hearts Still Beating, Part 1: Productive

**RHatch89** thanks!

 **XxEvilKittyxX** Caliver will be back! I promise. Also, I've been getting your notifications, following my other stuff, and I was hoping beyond hope that you might eventually comment when you caught up, so thank you for that.

 **The Sorrowful Deity** Haha, that's what you THINK! *smirky face

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** Yeah, he must've felt like shit ._.

 **DampishPoet** ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW!?

 _Personal Note (these are gonna be a thing sometimes now for me to document and look back on - hopefully not a lot of you will read them xD): First off, apparently it's possible to type up a 3000 word Script assignment in 4 hours before a midnight deadline, while still slightly high for your first time. Speaking of, trying that was... interesting. How weird is the feeling of falling out of yourself_ while _falling out of yourself? Very, that's the answer. Very bloody weird. Apparently delayed munchies are a thing, too?_

* * *

 **Put some gloves on, guys...**

 **this** **one's  
** **a** **fucking  
** **mess.**

* * *

 _...Oliver, a day before the events in the previous chapter…_

* * *

An old eighties rock album is blaring through the stereo. The curtains are drawn. A thin blanket is draped over the lamp on the desk, casting Joey's bedroom in dim green light. Oliver's supposed to be at the stables, but instead he's with Joey Song, screwing their morning away.

The bed is creaking loudly and they're both being even louder, but Joey's uncle isn't home and T. Rex's is drowning everything out anyway.

 _'Well you can bump and grind_  
 _It is good for your mind_  
 _Well you can twist and shout_  
 _Let it all hang out_  
 _But you won't fool the children of the revolution_  
 _No, you won't fool the children of the revolution_  
 _No, no, no...'_

"You're so—"

"Shush."

"—So good at this... _uhhh!_ "

"Said, _shush._ "

Oliver covers Joey's mouth, latching onto his throat like a vampire. They're both breathless and reeling and skin on skin _in_ skin.

 _'But you won't fool the children of the revolution_  
 _No, you won't fool the children of the revolution_  
 _No way...'_

After, Oliver catches his breath into Joey's chest and Joey is breathing heavy and fast and rough through Oliver's fingertips. He puts his hand down.

"I'm going to die," Joey gulps, his accent gets strong now that he's tired—his family immigrated from Beijing a decade ago, but he still tries to hide his accent. "I am really going to die, do you know that?"

Their noses brush. Oliver doesn't kiss Joey, he whispers, "Shush," into his lips instead, then dismounts to clean up.

There's a lighter and a pre-rolled joint inside Oliver's boot. He wipes sweat from his face and chest and lights up, which he does by himself; holding the joint between his lips. He spends a while taking in the smoke and the music and that feeling of the world melting throughthroughthrough itself...

Joey makes him use a mug for an ashtray. The ashes stick to the old goats' milk at the bottom.

"You should not smoke that stuff in here," Joey says over the music. "My uncle will go ape if he smells anything."

Oliver grins. _'Ape'_ is something Jerry would say. He passes the blunt over politely.

"It's too early. We should go to class."

Oliver shakes his head.

"We could still catch second period."

Oliver doesn't respond.

"Guess you're skipping today, too..."

Joey asks a lot of questions. To quiet him, Oliver lies across the bed, careful his blunt doesn't burn anything, and very gently blows smoke along Joey's stomach. Joey gives up and puts his head back on the pillow, his fingers trailing through Oliver's hair and catching the two tiny braids hidden inside his fringe.

Oliver shuffles off the bed and wanders around the bedroom. He sets the mug on the desk and leaves his joint balanced on top, humming and nodding his head to the beat. Music sounds especially surreal to Oliver when he's high, Oliver and music don't just listen to each other, Oliver and music have full-blown conversations.

Oliver decides to pull the curtains open and sunlight swallows him whole. He loves it. _God._ But Joey rushes up and shuts the curtains after him. Oliver stumbles back a step, arms up. He giggles.

"Holy... _Jeez,_ Oliver." Joey goes to the stereo and turns off the music. Oliver's world goes grey in silence. He grabs his blunt and smokes some more. Joey snatches the joint. He puts it out with a wet thumb.

"Hey!"

"Relax. You can finish it later." He puts it behind Oliver's ear for him. "Oliver, someone could see you. Don't open the curtains. My uncle already thinks it's weird you spend so much time 'studying' here. What's he gonna do when he hears rumours of you naked in my window?"

Oliver's no good at conversation, especially like this. Silently, he tips his head back and looks up to the ceiling. He grins. Joey has a poster of that movie, Avatar, up there; the one with half the guy's face as human and the other half alien. Oliver never got to see that movie before the turn, but he saw it at last movie night. He liked the forest, how it lit up under the Na'vi peoples' feet. Oliver likes remembering Alexandria like that, like the ground glowed whenever he stepped through it only he just didn't see it because it was always daytime. But Oliver felt it. He was connected to the trees. He could hear them if he listened hard enough, and they could hear him back, like music.

"I've got chores," Oliver says. Joey's brown epicanthic eyes follow him across the room. Oliver feels very breezy as he shuts his eyes and points at the window. "I should go."

"You know you can use the door, right?"

Oliver looks at Joey's tanned-olive skin, a few patches of acne, his floppy, black hair all scruffy with sweat over his temples, and the plantation of red and purple marks across his throat. Oliver registers the disappointment on Joey's face and sighs.

"Sorry," he says. "I wasn't going to do this."

It was true. He wasn't. The last month had been a blur. Three main events had happened. Oliver was still having trouble making sense of it.

The first thing —the obvious thing— he and Joey had become friends. Almost a year older and over half a foot taller, Joey was shy and timid and as soft spoken as a bird. One day, Oliver just sat with him at supper and asked how Billy was doing. They bonded over being bi-ethnical and bilingual (Oliver avoided any other bi-related subjects). They studied together. At the start, it really was _just_ studying. Joey struggles in math, Oliver's best subject, so they worked well together. And when one of Joey's goats died suddenly, Oliver helped him bury it. He sat there by the grave and waited for Joey to stop crying—Joey's like that, cries over goats and buries them like people. Oliver often felt mean around Joey for not feeling things as much as he did. He'd called the goat 'Teal'. Oliver was sick of boys who kept naming animals after colours. One time, Joey was getting picked on by some other kids, so Oliver stepped in and beat them up for him. He forced the kid with the knife to hand it over. "It's mine now." He even threatened to cut off the kid's nose if he didn't. "You're so full of shit, De Luca. You know that?" "Leave Joey alone or I'll show you what _you're_ full of. _Guts,_ my guess. I'll let you hold them in your hands just so you can get a good _look_." When they were gone, Oliver picked up the pen knife and pushed it into Joey's palm. "Happy birthday." "But I'm not seventeen until tomorrow." "Then consider it punctual." Joey was still crying a little. "Look, Joey, you have to fight back. Even if you're not tough, they won't know. _Entrambi sono idioti—_ they're not stupid like the walkers either, easier, these guys don't bite." "You were so angry." "You've seen me angry before." "No. I see you fight. You were not angry last time." "..." "I'm right, aren't I?" "...I'm angry all the time, man." "You like it, fighting." "I just don't like assholes." "No. You do." "Assholes? Yeah, got me." " _Fighting._ " They'd tried to keep straight faces but both bust out laughing. "Fine... I like it, alright. I like fighting."

That night, Joey kissed him—just his cheek. Oliver shoved him away, like he was hurt, like he couldn't believe him, and Joey kept saying sorry and Oliver kept saying nothing, kept hurting, until he said, "Shush," grabbed Joey by the collar, and kissed him on the mouth. They kissed all evening until Joey's uncle came home and Oliver had to climb out the window.

The second event, or rather, series of events, was that Oliver has been kissing a lot more people after arriving to the Kingdom. He figured it didn't matter, after Isabelle and Joey. So there was Stacey. Jillian. Mindy—who let him put his hand in her shorts. He didn't usually go further than second base, very rarely third. The girls will talk and laugh and then they'll go make out behind the bike-shed or the stables, and there was that one time when Sean thought Oliver might've been his boyfriend, but she quickly broke up with him after she realised he was avoiding her:—"You never tell me anything about yourself, Oliver. I have no idea who you are. I'm sorry... See you around." Then there's Esme, who's like the Kingdom's resident ghost. Esme is exactly a day older that Oliver, born in a hospital with the same name (Standord Hospital) except Oliver's was in North Dakota and Esme's was in California. Esme's skin is dark, hair so big and frizzy and black people get lost in it, and they use neutral pronouns which is something Oliver had never heard of before them. Esme's does things a little differently than the rest of the people Oliver's been kissing. They come to his room some nights at random to fool around with him. The first time was quite a shock for him:—"Err... hey. What's up, Esme?" "I'm bored. Can I get in? It's cold." "Okay..." "...Isabelle told me about what happened in the theatre room. Sounded nice. Return the favour, yeah?" "Oh! Err, o... okay." "Got a raincoat?" "W...what?" "Condom." "Oh. Yeah." "Nice." " _Nngg..._ err... E...Esme?" "Hm?" " _Oh, jeez._ Isn't... Isn't this gonna make things... _weird_ between us? _Ah!_ " "Sorry." "Jeez, Esme, you're c...crazy... _Areyousureitwon'tgetweird?_ " "You're making it weird. Just sit back and relax, Oliver, okay?" "Okay..." Esme's come by a handful more times since then. Always at night. Always 'bored'. Always whispering. The latest time, about a week ago, Oliver woke up to them sitting on his stomach, humming some nice-sounding song. "Hey, what's up?" "You, clearly." "Oh, yeah..." "I'm bored..." "...Ez, does bored mean sad to you?" "What kind of question is that?" "Well... you're crying." "...Look, Oliver, do you want to do this or not?" "Not if you're going to keep crying." "Won't have much to cry over if you go south on me... Oliver, that was a compliment." "Will you skip class and help me steal Ezekiel's pomegranates in the morning?" "Like a deal? You know that's prostitution, right?" "No, no, just something to do together." "Why?" "I'm petty. Plus... not all friendships have to revolve around oral." "...We're friends?" "Guess." "You're not falling in love with me, are you?" " _Gross._ I just don't wanna become Shiva-chow. So, deal?" "Deal." When Oliver pulled off Esme's shirt, he noticed a big bruise on their chest. Esme asked him to try not to touch it, so he didn't. Esme's mom beat them. Oliver wasn't allowed to say anything, just like he wasn't with Ron, and this strange thought occurred to him that he might've loved Esme after all, to some extent. "Just sit back and relax, Ez, okay?" "Okay..." They had sex that night, the first and only time, and the next morning Esme helped Oliver steal Ezekiel's pomegranates. Esme's been back since that night, but not to fool around. Sometimes Oliver'll just wake up to them sitting at the end of his bed, reading. He'll mumble, "What's up?" and Esme will whisper back, "Nothing. Go back to sleep."

Oliver remembers where he is again.

"Gotta go," he says to Joey, pulling on boxers and his hoodie. He sees the pen-knife from those bullies over on the table; Joey hasn't touched it since that day. "You should, too, if you wanna make school."

Joey looks at his feet. "Yeah."

They dress. Oliver forgets to put his T-shirt on so he just stuffs the hem into his back pocket. He cuffs his jeans, too, like Glenn does. T. Rex is coming with, in Oliver's hoodie pocket. He finds his glasses and inhaler.

"Hey, Oliver? I... I was thinking about coming out."

"Cool, man."

"Yeah, uh..." Joey takes a small breath. "I was hoping you could be there – for when I tell my uncle, I mean."

Oliver's too high for this. Last night wasn't even supposed to happen. One minute Joey was sitting at his desk, shaking his foot side-to-side, like Carl when he's concentrating, and Oliver thought about that, and the hurting came back again, and he heard the words, "Are you okay?" and then he was under the desk, blowing Joey's whole world apart. He stayed over all night, and now he was here, facing the consequences.

"It's your uncle kind of... homophobic?"

Oliver was honestly scared of Huan. Ignoring the previous statement, he was also still mad about the goat shelter incident last month, and would give Oliver disapproving looks if he saw him hanging around his place too long. To remind himself that Huan is harmless, Oliver thinks of him like the human embodiment of Taotie; which Oliver read in a Chinese mythology book was a greedy monster that would eat anything and everything and even ate its own body, so by the time it died it was just a big hungry head.

"He'll get over it," Joey says. "And I mean... things have been pretty nice for the last few—"

"Joey." Oliver's sitting in Joey's lap on the bed. Oliver doesn't know how he got here. Joey kisses him. He tastes musky and hot like air in summer. Oliver kisses him back. He sees blue eyes in his head, but outside, they're brown.

"Shit." Oliver pulls back. "Joey. Chill, okay?"

Joey watches him. Oliver grins, chest collapsing.

"Come out, by all means," he explains, "don't let me stop you. Just, you know, don't do it on account of me. I'm not worth it."

Joey looks sad at that. Oliver didn't mean it to be sad. As far as he was aware, it was just the truth.

"Yes you are..." Joey touches Oliver's cheek but Oliver laughs and shakes him off. Joey frowns. "What is your problem, Oliver?"

"Nothing, man."

Joey shakes his head. Oliver's finding it harder and harder to keep grinning.

"You always act so... so... like you don't care about anything," Joey explains, "like you don't have time to let someone in."

"You don't know me..."

"I don't. But I know you flinch when people touch you sometimes. I know you can sit and stare off into space like you've fallen out of your own body, and not even when you're high, and, I know you go and talk to that old lady, and—"

"She's not that old."

"—and I know you always come back sad. I saw you crying last time. You're so... _alone_."

Oliver just looks at him. He shuts his eyes, waits, then laughs and steps off of him, collecting his things. Joey watches this.

"You _are,_ " he says, voice rising. "I know you mess around and I know you have a lot of friends and play like some punk who's got everything figured out, but you are _pretending_... like performance in theatre."

"You'd know."

"I would!" Joey yells, but he sputters out quickly like a sparkler. Joey's like that. His emotional bursts come fast and vicious, but they never last for long enough to cause a fire. "I've been pretending all my life," he whispers.

Oliver ignores him. He is not a sparkler, at least he's not anymore. He's a whole forest fire; either holding it in or dousing it out with weed.

"I heard you say his name while you were sleeping," Joey explains. "You said... Carl."

Oliver stops breathing. He had a nightmare last night. He's had the same nightmare almost every night for weeks now. In it, it's always snowing, and he's always doing target practice with his Thunder. Joey's there, or maybe it's Esme instead. They'll be standing right next to him. Oliver'll look over to them and smile. He never notices him —Carl— standing in place of the target. He doesn't notice. He doesn't have time. It happens before he knows it, always. Oliver cocks his Thunder, pulls the trigger, and sends a bolt of lightning right through Carl's face...

Oliver's stomach hits the floor. His cheeks sear. Joey's eyes are focussed and up close. Oliver thinks of how Joey looked at him like that last night, just before Joey's first time. They were trying to be as quiet as they could, sticking to the side of the bed by the wall so it wouldn't creek so bad. Joey looked uncomfortable and overwhelmed and nervous, so once Oliver'd gotten all the condomy steps out of the way, he made a math joke to break the ice and Joey laughed so hard Oliver had to sit up. But Joey settled. He looked up to Oliver, all focussed and up close, nerves in his throat and Oliver between his legs. "Does it hurt bad, your first time?" "I'll go slow, swear." "Okay." Oliver'd felt that same thing he did that night with Esme, like he might have loved Joey, only it wasn't quite for sympathy but rather gratitude, this time. But he didn't tell. He just went ahead. Joey shut his eyes to focus on how he felt, but Oliver asked him to keep them open, his eyes. Oliver wanted to look at Joey and keep on looking at him, right up until it was over.

But not now. Now Oliver wants to stop looking at anyone. He wants to go to chores. Horses don't ask you to help them come out to their uncles. Horses don't bring up your exes. They don't cry over goats or tell you you're a fake. If anything, horses know you are already, they just have the decency not to call you out on it.

It occurred to Oliver only right now that you never really stop loving your first love, not when you fall that hard, not when your splat is earth shattering. Carl's left an impact like a footprint in cement, and now that it's hardened up, the dent only fits one shoe. Oliver can lay dirt on top, fill the empty space, plant all the seeds he likes—hell, he can grow a garden for all the universe cares, but none will ever break through the hardness. None ever like Carl Grimes.

"Oliver?"

Joey's said it several times already but Oliver only snaps out of his thoughts now. Joey looks guilty, and he reaches out but Oliver jerks his shoulder away.

"I... I shouldn't have mentioned him."

Oliver glares at him, eyes wet. Joey's cheeks are crimson but he's scowling right back. Oliver's never seen Joey this angry. Oliver wanted him to hit him. He wanted him to fight back. He hated that Joey didn't fight back. He hated the way nobody does here. Not Esme with their mom, or Juni when Ray and Leviathan knocked his tooth out, or Isabelle when Oliver just walked out on her, or Ezekiel when the Saviors terrorise him even if half of his people don't know it.

And it's getting worse.

In the latest trade Oliver joined three days ago, they hadn't found enough food and Oliver became the deposit while they looked the rest of the day for more. He was forced to sit in the back of a truck while a guy called Fat Joe pointed a gun at his chest. The others had an hour to find something, and in the end found some canned goods and a bunch of syphoned gas. It was enough, and Oliver was let go with a warning—which was issued because in the wait he kept asking Fat Joe where he got his gun from. It was a Colt Python, like Rick's. Fat Joe said, "Why don't you mind your own business?" And Oliver said back, "Why don't you suck my nuts?" And then a guy called Simon said, "I wouldn't say that, kid. Unless you wanna end up like the last guy." Oliver didn't know what that meant, but when Simon knocked on his skull and made a _clop-clop_ noise with his tongue, Oliver shook him off and flipped him the finger, placing it over his top lip like a moustache. "Think you're funny, kid?" Simon asked. "Think you look good with that weasel sitting on your face?" Oliver asked back. Simon put a gag in his mouth and covered his face with a sack until the others got back.

So, screw it. _Yes._ Oliver likes to fight. Oliver likes to make trouble where trouble is due, where all the terrible _angryhurtbadsad_ hidden inside him can come out where it's useful, where fire can light and _burnburn **burn**_.

"You think you're special?" Oliver growls. "You think you can save me? Show me how to feel? How to use my cold shrivelled up heart? All that bull."

"No. I—"

"We _fucked,_ Joey. That's _it!_ " Oliver's breathless. His cheeks are wet. He's sick of all this crying.

Joey looks tired and defeated and younger than almost a year older than him. "That _is_ it," he says. His voice is low and throaty. "We're not doing it anymore."

" _Whatever._ " Oliver grabs the rest of his things, hissing, "Study on your own, asshole," as he slams the door behind him.

* * *

Later that morning, Morgan finds Oliver in his room, music blaring and an empty bottle of whiskey on the carpet by his hand. Something smells of weed. Morgan yells but Oliver doesn't hear him. He switches off the music and this, of all things, gets Oliver's attention.

"Oliver."

"You killed T. Rex."

"What are you doing, boy?"

Oliver looks at the bottle. "It's just goat's milk. I drank the whisky days ago."

"Why aren't you at the stables?"

Oliver shrugged.

"Productive," Morgan said. "You need to keep you busy. If you get up and did chores instead of getting high with all your friends—"

"No friends."

"I thought you hanging out with Joey last night."

Oliver just groans.

"Get up," Morgan says. "You're rotting your brain, son... Dammit. The doctor's waiting on you."

"What? Why?"

"You have an appointment."

Oliver sits up, his glasses off kilter. "I'm getting my new hand!"

"Not when you're like this."

"No, no, I'm totally good." Oliver stands. Head rush. He's been lying on his floor too long. He grips the wall and sneezes. "Good, see?"

Morgan sighs and resits Oliver's glasses for him. "I'm gonna tell Carol about this."

Oliver snorts. "Good luck."

"Actually, I'm going up today."

"She won't talk to you."

"She talks to you."

Oliver doesn't say anything. He does that falling out of time thing again and again and—

"Still," Morgan sighs. "I'll go for you. I know it's day four today, don't tell me otherwise. Come on, let's go."

* * *

In the infirmary, Oliver sits on a spinny chair and stares at the door handle ahead of him. When he almost tips himself over, Morgan grabs his shoulder and apologises.

"He's a little... under the weather."

"High?"

"As a kite," Morgan admits.

Oliver laughs. The doctor makes a "Hmm," noise. Everyone knows the doctor's always thought Oliver was trouble. Gets in too many fights.

"This is your new prosthesis, Oliver." He sees the thin metal instrument tangled in leather and nylon. "Simple body powered cable hook," the doctor is saying, to Morgan mostly. Oliver is hearing words but they aren't going in much. "It's got a moulded socket, might be a little big on him but you can tighten it, and he should grow into the rest soon enough. It's made of black carbon fibre, with a metal cable running from the centre of the harness down to the hook. The harness keeps it on and the cable makes it operate."

Oliver licks his lips. The doctor gives him more water and looks at Morgan. Oliver's sure this is a mistake, surely the prosthetic should go to someone else. But Ezekiel insisted. Ezekiel's probably only so nice to him because he's got a thing for Carol: the unattainable pomegranate, the beacon of _all_ hidden sweetness.

Ezekiel goes to see Carol almost every day.

Oliver can tell he's turning green so he tries to focus on the prosthetic. He's told to put it on. He starts with a white sock, slipping it on over his stump so it stops a few inches before his elbow. Oliver thinks it looks silly but the doctor tells him it'll make it more comfortable.

"Here, fit your arm into the mould now." Oliver does, it's a little loose and might take some time to get used to. "Reach around and flip the harness up around your shoulders."

With difficulty, he does.

"How it works..." The doctor holds both of Oliver's arms up. "The hook is blunt, and has two parts with rubber bands at the base that keep the hook closed. Look, see, it's tight enough to hold on to my fingers but not hard enough for it to hurt. The cable works off the lever here on the side of the hook, and when you put tension on the cable, the hook is pulled open."

His arms are put down.

"Reach out, the hook opens."

Oliver reaches out, the hook opens.

"Relax, the hook closes again."

Oliver relaxes, the hook closes.

"You can also do it by putting tension on your other shoulder, and a number of other ways," the doctor says, "but you'll get the hang of it soon enough. This bit, here—" A small patch of harness over Oliver's upper arm, like a lazy shoulder pad. "—will prevent the cable from catching your skin."

"Cool," Oliver says. He tries out some different movements but gets tired quickly. The doctor chooses to wait until Oliver is sober to go any further. So, once the prosthesis is off and put away, Morgan takes Oliver back to their place.

"I'm gonna go see her today."

"No you are not," Morgan says.

"Wasn't a question."

"Wasn't an answer."

Oliver groans and sits on his bed. He wants to argue back but this morning with Joey was difficult enough. He realises he's crying. Shit. Oliver does this when he's high sometimes. Cries for no reason.

Morgan sighs.

"What happened?"

Oliver shrugs and looks up at him. "Joey broke up with me."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."

Oliver sniffs, shrugs, giggles, then shrugs again. "We weren't even boyfriends." He wants to stop talking before he embarrasses himself but the words keep coming. "I don't even know if I really liked him. I shut my eyes and it's not him but when I open them Joey's there and it might not be so bad except it is."

Morgan looks like he's thinking very hard about something while he hands Oliver a bowl. It's warm, filled with ramen. "Eat, Oliver."

He does.

"Aren't you going to give me a lecture?" he says through a mouthful.

"No. I don't think you need one. Not from me."

Oliver thinks that's an odd thing to say. Morgan's full of odd things, he thinks, slurping. Odd things and pensive glances and neat Aikido moves.

Oliver giggles.

"Get some rest," Morgan grins; Oliver realises he said all that other stuff outside his head. "You can think about all this later. Talk, to me, or Carol, if you want to."

Oliver nods even though he doesn't mean it. He makes a list in his head of all the odd things about Joey to maybe make himself feel better.

Joey's a weirdo.  
He covers his mouth when he talks sometimes.  
He doesn't go anywhere without a thermos dangling from his belt.  
He stirs things with the wrong end of the fork.  
And he makes these weird little hanging paper ornament decorations, makes Oliver put them up in his room to keep away negative spirits while he sleeps.

Then Oliver gets to thinking about Carl, how everybody doesn't know that she never lets him into her house, never even opens the door. Oliver waited four days to ride out there the first time on Roan, who's grown pretty fond of Oliver (and trail-mix), and then he waited another four days to go again, and another, and so on. Morgan must've caught on. It makes Oliver mad. Morgan wouldn't get it. He wouldn't get it like how Ezekiel and Richard don't get it. They bring Carol food and ask to talk to her, but it isn't food or talk she wants. Oliver doesn't even know what she wants. But he knows not to knock. He knows not to wait around for her to open any doors. He just leaves a book and a packet of cigarettes on the step and then he walks away and rides back to the Kingdom.

He plans to go back today to see if she's finished _Nancey's Saint Clare_ yet—the last two times she didn't give it back. But Morgan's right. Oliver's not going anywhere until he's sober, so he finishes his ramen, and some other things he manages to find in the pantry, then finds a warm and dry place in the hallway to sleep it off.

He falls asleep thinking he was wrong before. He isn't sweet surrounded by bitter. Or if he was, he isn't anymore. He's a pomegranate left out in the sun, rotted. Not too much trouble, but a lost cause all together.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Children of the Revolution_ by T. Rex.

Joey and Esme: was ? that ? smut ? i ? do not ? think so ? but if ? it ? was ? screw you ? you read that too ? motherfucker ? aaaaaahhhhh. I really like both Joey and Esme. Esme needs an actual friend and to stand up to their mom, and Joey is sensitive and kind and ugh.

Oliver's behaviour: Please don't hate him, he just doesn't like the hurty feeling okayy, and he isn't going to be a stoner now. He'll find other coping mechanisms - mainly something (someone) back home in Alexandria... probably. Also, plz notice the parallels between Oliver and Negan :3

Thanks **yozza** , for the prosthetic arm inspiration ^.^ hopefully he'll get another go at it soon.

I don't know where the Kingdom people sleep/live. I figure it's either like trailers like in Hilltop or like classrooms, like way back when in the office blocks? But for now I'm not going into detail.

P.S. Carl literally hasn't gone more than a thousand words without thinking about Oliver yet, and Oliver pretty much low-key went three chapters xD poor kid, though tbh Oliver _was_ thinking about him, but he wasn't _thinking_ about him, like he couldn't. But I think he can now. Idk,

Guys, in regards to what happens later in this episode, I'm telling you, the pool table is cursed...  
#ripmikey #shutthehellupmikey _isdead_ nobodycantellmeotherwise

As always,  
Happy reading.


	39. Hearts Still Beating, Part 2: Big Bang

**This Sorrowful Deity** yeah, poor Joey.

 **DampishPoet** xD same man. And kapow they will. I hope.

 **RHatch89** I hope so...

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** He loves you, too xD he also says sorry... lots.

 **DarkerSide123** you're gr8 don't h8 thanks for everything m80o

 _Personal note: "Gael, when are you going to realise it's not a chore to be your friend?"_

* * *

 **Stick around for the end of this one.**

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

It's late afternoon when Oliver wakes up. He doesn't feel totally sober but he's coherent enough to shower and brush his teeth. Morgan's talking with Ben, which allows Oliver time to grab his things, tack Roan up, and leave.

The ride to Carol's house seems shorter every time Oliver goes. Roan is quiet and keeps good pace. He's like that; nasty on the ground but hard-working and reliable riding—Oliver has a theory that Roan's just insecure. For horses, it's easier to know what a handler wants if the handler's sitting on its back; sometimes Oliver just thinks about turning left or speeding up and Roan will do it for him, like they're thinking with the same brain.

Upon arrival, there's always this strange moment where Oliver considers not stopping, riding right past, following Morgan's marks all the way back.

But Oliver always stops.

He hitches Roan at the mailbox, feeds him an apple core, then takes out a brown sack from the saddle-bag and carries it to the porch. He didn't find cigarettes, so brought a small glass vase instead—didn't put any flowers in it but figures Carol can find some to pick. Today's book is _The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time._ Lani got Oliver to read it. Juni and the book's protagonist are both autistic, so she figured Oliver could learn from it. Oliver liked it, so he thinks Carol might, too.

Quietly, he leaves the sack on the step. There's another plastic bag, one he left last time now with an outline of _Nancey's Saint Clare_ inside. He takes it and heads back across the graveyard.

"Oliver..."

He stops at her voice. He's rock, just another headstone.

 _RIP_  
 _OLIVER FABIANO DE LUCA  
orphan_  
 _cazzo-ragazzo_  
 _and decayed pomegranate_

Finally, Oliver turns to look at her. Carol is beautiful—that's his first thought. Oliver didn't know rust could _unrust_. But there she is: unrusted. Sparkling right there on her porch like a new nickel.

"Ma'am," he says, pushing his glasses up his nose.

Carol's mouth twists into either a smile or a soft frown, Oliver can't tell.

"Come inside, Oliver."

* * *

Carol makes coffee, then stretches along the couch and begins reading _Curious Case_. Oliver's sitting on the inglenook in front of her, a steaming mug on a coaster by his leg on the floor and the fire lit and warm in his face. Behind him, he can pick at the small bowl of pomegranate arils on the coffee table; he and Esme may have stolen all of the pomegranates in Ezekiel's basket, but they forgot the ones ready for harvest in the garden. Ezekiel still hasn't confronted Oliver for stealing them, but he has to know it was him.

Still, they _are_ tasty, as much as Oliver hates to admit.

Oliver feels good, eating and drinking and watching the flame. This is the first time he and Carol have been so close to fire and both been so comfortable with it.

Oliver likes Carol's house. In the last five or six weeks, she's made it comfortable and cosy. There are paintings of the hills and sunsets and plants and animals. The curtains are all drawn, and blankets are nailed up over the front and back door to hide light, but the house is still bright and warm.

Carol and Oliver haven't spoken much, it's just quiet and comfortable. Oliver doesn't know if he's been this happy in months. He glances behind himself, and Carol is watching him. She pushes the bowl of pomegranate arils towards him. Oliver takes some more. He doesn't ask her why she never invited him in until now, why she even let him in at all, but the questions must be on his face because Carol sighs.

"Oliver—"

"It's okay," he blurts out. "We don't have to talk about it."

Carol is about to say something, but there's a bump outside and she and Oliver startle. They exchange an apprehensive look. Carol gets up and opens the door. There's a rifle just next to it but she doesn't touch it.

"Morgan..."

He seems happy to see her. Oliver can't tell if Carol is happy to see him. She seems frustrated and relieved at the same time while Morgan sets his sack of food on the coffee table. "It's just some things from the Kingdom garden," he says, unsurprised by Oliver's presence, "some nectarines, some apples."

Carol has her hands in her pockets. Her eyes are still on Oliver, giving him a _we aren't done talking yet_ look. She looks at Morgan and says, "Thank you, but I am good."

"You can fend for yourself, I know, but fresh produce isn't something you can just—"

"Really..." She pushes a door open into another the kitchen. Inside, Oliver sees a table full of produce. "I'm _good._ "

Morgan grins. "Ezekiel?"

"Apparently some people are having a hard time believing me when I say I just want to be left alone," Carol admits, and avoids looking at Oliver. Morgan doesn't. He looks right at Oliver, but Oliver can't tell what his face is saying.

"You know, I was trying to leave you alone, and I will," he tells her. "But you called me over. Why?"

Then Carol looks at Oliver. Oliver looks at the floor. His smile-mask doesn't work around her. Finally, she looks at Morgan again. "How are you?"

"Good," Morgan says.

"Good," Carol replies. " _Now_ you can go." She makes no indication that she's talking to Oliver too, so he stays put while Morgan heads to the door, chuckling.

He tells her, "I think you're going soft."

"I think you're _going_ ," she sings back.

Oliver was wrong. Morgan does get it. He may even get it better than Oliver. Morgan didn't even come here until today, and now, grabbing his staff at the door, he isn't hesitating to leave. However, when he does open the door, Richard is standing there about to knock.

"Hey." He's holding a metal crate filled with empty glass bottles and vegetables. "Carol, hi."

She folds her arms.

"I'm sorry to bother you," Richard says. "Morgan, Oliver, I... I didn't expect you to be here, too. It's good you are. I wanted to speak to all of you, actually."

"Really," Carol says, stepping over to Oliver, "this isn't a good time. Oliver and I need to talk."

"Please," Richard says. "It's important."

* * *

Carol sits on the couch, Morgan on the arm, Richard on a chair opposite, and Oliver stands by the inglenook. Richard begins a very in-depth, rehearsed lecture, how he got to where he is, finding people, losing people, and finally finding The Kingdom—"I met Ezekiel. I saw what he built. But now I believe what he built is under threat."

He tells them that three or four months ago, the Saviors confronted Ezekiel for the first time out in the woods. Ezekiel didn't want to fight, so they cut a deal: **"** In exchange for food and supplies, no one would get hurt, and they'd never set foot inside the Kingdom, and very few of us even know."

"What does any of this have to do with me?" Carol asks.

"I know Ezekiel likes you," Richard says. "I also know that Ezekiel trusts you, and that's why I'm here. I need you to help me convince him of something. Right now, we have peace with the Saviors, but sooner or later, something's gonna go wrong. Maybe we'll be light on another drop, or maybe one of ours will look at one of theirs the wrong way, or maybe, they'll just decide to stop honouring the deal. Things will go bad. And when they do... the Kingdom will fall."

Richard loses his breath for a second. He tells them he lost his family, saw them die, that he's afraid soon they were all going to lose everything. "I'm asking you to help convince Ezekiel to attack the Saviors, to strike first and destroy them."

He says the Saviors numbers are more than Kingdoms, "The element of surprise is our only hope." He says, "Carol, I imagine that violence and fighting is something you haven't been a part of."

"You're wrong," she answers.

"You're very wrong," Morgan, too. "She's probably the most capable fighter in this room."

"Good." Richard nods and looks at Oliver. "And you? I've seen you with the walkers, and you held your ground last time, that—"

"Hold on. _'Last time'_ ," Carol interrupts, "what the hell happened _'last time'_?"

Richard stutters. "I thought you would've told her about that trade—"

"You've been taking him _trading,_ " Carol interrupts, "with _them._ "

"I want to fight," Oliver says. "Why wouldn't I? They took us hostage, Carol. They killed Denise right in front of us."

"Revenge is the way," Carol answers back.

"Of course it is," Richard says. "And it's time to fight _now_."

" _No,_ " Carol retorts. Her eyes are welling. She's looking at Oliver like he's something dangerous in her hands that she doesn't know what to do with. She glares at Richard. "This is something I am _not_ a part of. This is something _Oliver_ is _not_ a part of."

"Carol, I can—"

"No!"

"You don't have to fight," Richard says over us. "You just have to convince Ezekiel to bring the Kingdom to fight."

"You're not understanding me..." She gets up from her seat and stands over him. "I didn't want _you._ I didn't want Ezekiel or Morgan coming here. And I don't want anything to do with your lives, or your _deaths._ I just want to be left alone."

Oliver doesn't know where this leaves him. He doesn't know where he stands. Richard's already gotten up and marched towards the door.

"People will die," Morgan tells him, "a lot of them."

"You killed a man."

"I took a life to _save_ a life!"

"It's the same _Goddamn_ thing!" Richard yells. "We'll be taking their lives to save _ours!_ "

"You don't know that it will!"

"You're gonna choose to kill one day, Morgan, 'cause it _will_ get that bad! Why not choose now, before you lose someone you care about?"

"There's a peace now," Morgan answers. "I won't be a part of... _changing_ that. And, maybe we can build on that."

"Not with these people! When they turn on us, _and they will,_ that blood is gonna be on _your_ hands... But maybe you're all used to that."

He leaves and the three of them are alone.

"You should go, too," Carol says. "Morgan."

"Should," he answers. "Let you two talk." He's all pent up. Oliver, too; angry and tired and sad and lost.

"I don't want anyone else coming around or even knowing where I am," Carol says. "If you somehow see anyone we know, tell them I'm gone. Do that for me? Morgan, please."

Morgan opens the door. "I never meant for you to see me..." Then he's gone.

Carol shuts the door and stares at her feet for a few minutes. Oliver is still standing by the inglenook, not sure what to do.

"Why haven't you gone home?" Carol asks finally.

Oliver doesn't know what to say.

"Tell me why, Oliver."

He shakes his head. "Sorry. I can go. I can go."

"No," she retorts. "Not to the Kingdom. _Home._ Alexandria. Don't you want to?"

"Don't you?" he asks.

"No," she whispers. "But you do. I know it."

Oliver doesn't say anything. He doesn't even know how to deny it.

"You can't keep running away from yourself," she says, "you know that."

"You do," he replies. "You are, always."

" _I_ can't go back."

"Why?!"

She watches him across the room.

"Alexandria's just another place," Oliver tells her. "No matter where I go, it's never gonna feel home."

"It is," she says.

"I can't go without you," Oliver says. "They'd find out about this place. About you. They'll want to come and fight for them like they did for Hilltop. You aren't going to stick around for that. As soon as I go, you'll go."

Carol didn't reply, and Oliver felt alone. Joey was right. There is so much weight in that word. _Alone._ Oliver felt it in a room full of people. It was a part of him, ever since he lost his brother in that store. He feels it in his chest and in his blood and in his bones, right through into his fingertips and teeth. People say it's good to spend time alone, that it's an opportunity to get to know yourself, but Oliver has spent so much time alone now that he's decided he doesn't like himself at all.

"I'm sorry," Carol whispers. "I'm sorry I can't be what you need me to be. I'm sorry I can't be that to you anymore."

Last month, in one of the books he'd loaned her, she returned his mother's earrings in between the pages. Oliver threw them into the graveyard. He hated her, the type of hate when you love someone, too.

"You're such a good boy, Oliver," Carol whispers. Oliver is holding back tears. "I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to hurt you."

Then she's hugging him.

"Go home," she tells him. "Try to forget about me."

Oliver doesn't want to try to forget. Oliver doesn't want to never see her again. But he has no choice. Carl was right, saying goodbye never changes anything. It still hurts. Oliver knows it's happening and he is listening to her say it... he's even saying it back, but it hurts.

It hurts so badly.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

Michonne still isn't back. Dad and Aaron, too. Arat, whose temper could stun snakes, is on guard outside the house. I am in the bathroom with my sister and Negan. He's shaving.

" _Against_ the grain, kid," he says. " _Always_ against the grain."

I think back to two months ago, preparing for Oliver's birthday surprise downstairs while Dad was upstairs teaching him to shave, overhearing—" _With_ the grain. _Always_ with the grain."

After, we make spaghetti. Negan controls the stove while I get to rolling the dough at the island. He made us wear aprons. " _Man,_ that smells good. Want a taste?"

 _Stink-eye_ should be my new nickname. I think Negan's considering it, but _kid_ seems to work better for him, even though he doesn't really treat me like one.

Eventually, Olivia gets back and makes lemonade. When everything's finished, I set the table for four. We sit. Negan's at the end of the table, me on the left, Olivia opposite me; Judith asleep in her arms. Negan grins at me. He's looking at my socket.

We sit at the table for more than half an hour, watching the food go cold, before Negan runs out of patience. "I'm not waiting for your dad anymore," he says. "I don't know where the hell he is, but Lucille..." He picks her up and rests her, handle up, on the empty chair in front of Dad's plate. "...is hungry."

He tucks a napkin inside his collar. Without his jacket on, I see the bandage on his left wrist. Don't ask what it's for. Don't ask if Negan is his real name. Maybe a surname. Bet his first name's something lame like Bart or Shirly.

"Carl, pass the rolls."

I look at him.

" _Please..._ "

Reluctantly, I do.

* * *

As we finish the meal, Spencer is let in by Arat. After introducing himself, Spencer and Negan sit on the porch and drink scotch. Spencer must say something about the pool table in Mikey's old house because they go and get it. There's a very old blood-stain on the side, and I shiver. The table is set up outside in the street, scotch glasses and little chalk cubes set aside. Negan and Spencer play. Most everyone else is here, watching, standing around in the street. I'm on the porch with Olivia.

"I could never do this with Rick," Negan complains. "He would just be standing there, scowling, giving me that annoying side-eye he gives me."

"That's actually what I came to see you about," Spencer says. "I want to talk to you about Rick."

"Alright." Negan whistles, taking his first shot. Coloured balls clat across the table. "Talk to me, Spencer. Talk to me about _Rick._ "

"I get what you're trying to do here, what you're trying to build—I'm not saying I agree with your methods, but I get it. You're building a network. You're making people contribute for the greater good. Makes sense. But you should know, Rick Grimes has a history of not working well with others."

"Mm... Is that so?"

Pool balls clack.

"Rick wasn't the original leader here," Spencer explains. "My mom was. She was doing a really good job of it. Then she died, not long after Rick showed up, same with my brother, same with my dad."

"So, everything was peachy here for, what, years? And then Rick shows up, and suddenly, you're an orphan? That is the saddest story I've ever heard. Good thing for you he's not in charge anymore."

"Doesn't matter. His ego's out of control. He'll find a way to screw things up, to try and do things his way, to take over. That's what he did with my mom. That's what he'll do again."

Negan takes another drink and watches Spencer's go.

"What exactly are you proposing be done about that?" Negan asks.

"I am my mother's son. I can be the leader she was. That's what this place needs. That's what you need."

"So I should put you in charge?" I can't see Negan's face but I know he's grinning. "That's what you're saying?"

"We'd be much better off."

"You know, I'm thinking, Spencer?" Negan asks. "I'm thinking how Rick threatened to kill me, how he clearly hates my guts. But he is out there _right now_ , gathering shit for me to make sure I don't hurt any of the _fine_ people that live here." He's doing it again, biting the words. "He is swallowing. His. Hate. And getting. Shit. Done. That takes guts."

Negan takes his go.

"And then there's you," he says. "The guy who waited for Rick to be gone so he could _sneak over_ and talk to me to get me to do his dirty work, so he could take Rick's place. So I _gotta_ ask, if you wanna take over, why not just kill Rick yourself and just _take over?_ "

"What? No, no. I didn't... I don't—"

"You know what I'm thinking? 'Cause I have a guess..."

He's whispering now, leaning close.

"...it's because you got no _guts_."

There's a shimmer of steel, and then, fast and hard, it is plunged through Spencer's stomach. Olivia gasps. I shudder. Every living thing in Alexandria shudders. For a second, Spencer just stares. He looks down. Negan flicks his wrist and spills him out across the road. Spencer tries to hold onto it, _himself,_ and he does. He grips his intestines and collapses into a bloody heap.

"How _embarrassing!_ " Negan yells. "There they are. They were inside you the whole time. You _did_ have guts! I've never been so wrong in my whole _life!_ "

Spencer goes still. Negan strolls around the pool table and puts back his drink, then comes back and steps over Spencer's corpse, hips first like always. He sheathes his knife.

"Someone, get up here and clean this mess up."

Nobody moves.

"Oh. Anyone want to finish the game? C'mon. Anybody?" Negan grins. "Anybody? C'mon. I was _winning!_ "

I see it happen. Rosita's hand comes up, gun flashing in the evening sun, and then — _the shot goes off_ — I wait for him to hit the floor and for a second time stops and Negan will die. Negan will die. Just like that. Only he doesn't. _He doesn't._ Lucille is up. I heard it hit. I did. Bullet in skull... no, wood.

" _Fuck!_ " Negan gasps, twisting his bat around to see the bullet lodged into its side. "What the shit?! FUCK!"

He's more than red now.  
More than black.  
He's carbon.  
Can't see where it stops.

"You just—YOU TRIED TO KILL ME?!"

He's spinning on the spot like a hurricane. Rosita is pinned to the road under Arat's knee. Negan runs at her, bat up.

"YOU SHOT LUCILLE!"

"She got in the way!"

Arat's knife presses to her throat. Negan is pacing around Spencer's body, seething, until suddenly, almost in one second, he is totally calm again.

"What is this?" he asks, breathless while he grabs the bullet from the floor. "What is this? This little bad boy made from scratch? Look at those crimps. _This_ was homemade."

I don't look at Eugene but I still see him hiding behind his hands.

"You may be stupid, darlin', but you showed some real ingenuity here. Arat, move that knife up, right on that girl's face. Lucille's _beautiful_ , smooth surface is never gonna look the same, so _WHY_ should yours?! Unless... Unless you tell me, who made this."

"It was me," Rosita says, "I made it."

"You see... _now_ I just think you're lying. And you lying to me, _NOW_?! Such a shame. Arat's gonna have to cut up that pretty face. One more try..."

"It was me!" Rosita yelps.

Negan laughs. "OH! _You_ are such a fucking badass! Fine. Have it your way. Arat. Kill somebody."

"No. It was me!" Rosita screams. " _NO!_ "

It happens too quickly. There's no time to think. In one second, Arat's gun is aimed and the flash of white sends Olivia collapsing to the deck beside me. I yell and duck on reflex, and then I'm just crouched, staring at the hole under her eye, the shattered corner of her glasses.

When I look through the banister, Dad is there, coming through the crowd. This is me, I think. This is all on me. Dad's breathless. He's been running. Aaron, too, bloodied and bruised like someone beat him up. Saviors. Eric is helping him.

"We had an _agreement!_ "

"Rick!" Negan screeches. "Look, everybody, it's Rick! Ah, your people are making me lose my voice doing all this yelling."

Dad looks terrified.

"Rick, how about a _'thank you'_?" Negan asks. There's blood on his chin and shirt. "I mean, look, I know we started this relationship with me beating the holy fuck out of your friends, and because of that, we're never gonna sit around and braid each other's hair or share our deepest, darkest secrets, but how about a little _credit?_ I just bent over _backwards_ to show you how reasonable I am."

Negan points at me.

"Your kid, he hid in one of my trucks and _machine-gunned_ a bunch of my men down, and I brought him home, safe and sound, and I fed him _spaghetti._ "

Dad is glaring at me like he's going to scream. I'm sorry, I think to him. Dad, I'm sorry.

Negan keeps talking. "Another one of your people, well, he wanted me to kill you, and put him in charge. I took him out, for you. And another one, here, she shot Lucille trying to kill me just now, so I gave you one less mouth to feed. And by looking at her, that mouth did some _major_ damage. Now, personally, I wouldn't have picked her to be the one to go, but Arat—pfft, I don't know— _didn't_ trust her."

"Your shit's waiting for you at the gate," Dad rasps. "Just go."

"Sure thing, Rick, right after I find the guy or gal that made this bullet. Arat?" Her gun comes up again, this time at Aaron. Eric blanches.

"It was me!" Tara yelps.

" _No..._ " Eugene is sobbing, "it wasn't. It was me. It was only me."

"You?" Negan asks. Eugene's breath is shaking. He starts muttering about casing and turret reloaders and powder. "Shut up. I believe you." Negan is grimacing and walking away, his bat up near his nose. "Lucille, give me strength..."

With a sigh, he turns to Dad.

"I'm gonna be relieving you of your bullet maker, Rick—that and whatever you left for me at the front gate. And however much you scavenged, it's not good enough, because you're still in a _serious_ fucking hole after today."

He turns to everyone.

"Let's move out!"

"No!" Rosita screams. "No, no! Please, just take me!" They're taking Eugene. " _No!_ "

"Rick, I ain't gonna lie," Negan laughs, "your kitchen is a God damn _mess_... I'll see you next time." They're going. Rosita is curled up on the road crying her eyes out. I can hear Spencer waking up, so I leave Dad to it.

He comes inside a few minutes later, knife bloodied. "Look after Judith."

"Where're you going?"

"Brownstone."

"Okay."

"Hm."

I think, for a while, conversations between Dad and I are best left succinct.

After long, I decide I can't stay in the house anymore. I can't stand around the blood stains. Judith is asleep. I wrap up my face and attend Olivia and Spencer's funeral. During Gabriel's eulogy, I spot Scab walking along the very top of the wall, looking down on us all. It's the first I've seen of him in weeks. His fur is longer and matted. He looks feral, but he does climb down and watch me from across the lawn. He's put on weight.

Ever since the freezer incident, Scab comes inside to rest rarely, but he's always around. He leaves dead mice on Enid's porch in return for any cat food they left out, and earlier this week he climbed in through my window and ran away with my hat. I had to chase him across Alexandria, and when I got it, Scab leapt at me and I had to throw him into a hedge.

I think, because of that, this is why he doesn't come and greet me when I leave the funeral. Just watches. In my head, I imagine him ask, _How are you, Carl?_ And in my head I say, _I've been better, but it's good to see you._ And then, satisfied, Scab turns on his tail and disappears over the wall again.

I go for a walk.

Walking makes me feel better, like fences make me feel better, and pudding and grapes and keeping a Ventolin inhaler in my pocket for no reason. Walking helps me figure things out. The longer the walk the more impossible the problem. I get the feeling it's going to be dark by the time I go back home. It almost is. Hours later. The sun is turning Alexandria pink and gold, but it isn't tiredness that stops me.

Hoofbeats.

I stand and watch the gate open from the outside. Michonne enters Alexandria an suddenly I feel ten pounds lighter. Her hand is closed around the reins of an ashen red horse that follows her inside. It has one ear.

"You got it?" she asks someone.

"Yes, ma'am."

The voice is from a boy and a man all at once—still in between, like me, except his skin is darker and his eyes are brown, a pair of glasses sitting on his nose. His dusty brown jacket is rolled up at the sleeves, and to shut the gate, he uses one hand. He only _has_ one hand. But I know this. Of course I do.

"Oliver?"

Michonne's looking at me very strangely while she and the horse pass by. I'm not looking at her but I think I say, "Dad's in brownstone," and I think she says, "Okay," back. But I can't tell. I can only feel my heartbeat. I read somewhere that mice have hearts that beat so fast they hum when you listen to them; their own wavelength, like colour. I think that's how fast my heart is beating, now. I'm a humming siren, but I don't know what colour I must be. Oliver must know. He's staring right at me. Maybe he can feel the colours. Maybe he can see the humming. Crap. I'm making no sense. He's standing right there. I walk, only then suddenly I'm running, mumbling, reaching, and Oliver's arms open and grab and we crash. I think he says my name but it comes out all crumpled up inside of him. _Oliver,_ I think and think back. _Oliver, Oliver, Oliver!_ And it only takes me one step forward to push him against the mesh and gate, a sharp bash and clatter. I look right into Oliver's eyes. I keep my hands pressed firm to his chest. And when I kiss him, we both get blown to pieces.

❂ **:** ❂ **:** ❂ **:** ❂

 _Colourful  
I'm in love  
With you_

 _Colourful  
Why am I loved  
By you?_

 _Sending out signals from me  
Sending out signals  
Sending out signals to you  
Sending out signals..._

❂:❂:❂:❂

The explosion makes a crater and we are kissing right in the middle of it. My hat falls off. Oliver is kissing me and shaking his head at the same time. I don't know why. I don't care. There are two tiny braids in his fringe. What the hell, I love them. I love them. _I love him._ But I don't say that. Screw me if I say that. Instead I'm thinking and thinking and not saying all the things I've had months to say but haven't. I don't know where to start. I just say, "Oliver," again. "Oliver. _Oliver!_ Oliver, Oliver."

"Hey, man."

Crap. His voice is lower. Holy _crap._ Oliver's voice is _so_ much lower. Someone's dialled down the pitch in his throat, and someone else has made the space between his shoulders broad, and the hair on his chin and upper lip thicker. Holy freaking _crap_. I hold onto the back of his neck and look at him. Oliver's looking at me, too. He looks mad. Crazy. What was that word? _Demente._ I must look it, too. Demented.

"It's you..." I press our foreheads and breathe in his breath and look at him so close our eyelashes get all tangled up. "It is you." My voice cracks. "It's so _you_ , Oliver."

Oliver looks terrified. He looks like he's drowning. His face is all stunned and petrified. I touch him. I put my thumb to his scarred-up mouth and sob.

"Hey," I say, "hey. Oliver. Oliver, hey."

"I couldn't think about you," he says. "I couldn't stand it. It was only supposed to be you." He shakes his head again and curses. "Carl, I'm—"

"It's okay." I don't want him to keep talking. I want us to be as far away from talking as possible. I tell him, "Don't worry." And I keep on telling him. "Don't worry, Oliver." I don't want to think or see or feel or hear or care about anything right now except him and him and _him_. "Just don't worry, okay?"

There are tears and I rub them away.

"Carl..."

"Yeah."

"Yeah..."

I pull him to me by the collar of his jacket and kiss him. And again. And then again. And _again_. Kiss him. Kiss him. And kiss him. Kiss down. Kiss up. Kiss in. Kiss. Kiss. _And kiss._ Because I'm growing. Growing right through mouth and body and bones, and it's just me and him and we kiss and kiss _and kiss,_ until we split the universe open and a whole new world spills out of it.

Negan was right: this _is_ it...

The Big Bang, itself.

* * *

 **Notes**

welp.

 _I mean, it only took 29 chapters,  
8 months of story,  
and 11 months for me to write it...  
so, if you stuck with them for that long, thank you._

Song was _Signals_ by Júníus Meyvant — I also love that Carl's songs always seem to be about colour and art lately.

Happy reading.


	40. Hearts Still Beating, Part 3: Blasphemy

**Hongo En** :3 thank you so much. Agh, no, don't stop though! That review. Agh. Thank you crazily.

 **The Sorrowful Deity** Cheers to _that_.

 **RHatch89** ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** One word: RIGHT?!

 **XxEvilKittyxX** Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed ;) (also sorry for making you question your morals, Joey and Esme were very confusing to write, too)

 **DJinTheHouse** _(from your reviews in chapter 2 and 11)_ Yeah, a little. Poor dude. Chapter 3 was not a good time for him. And hmm you'll have to see...

 **DampishPoet** Thank you xD You're the bomb.

 **The Flash Fanatic** Yes! Yaaayy!

 _Personal note: Gail, who knew the reason trees looked like giant brown cotton candy stalks was because you needed glasses, too?! -_- touché, Oliver De Luca. Revenge isn't supposed to work between fiction and real life._

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

Oliver's gotten a lot of hugs in the last few hours.

Dad takes his gun. Oliver isn't happy about it, but he doesn't argue when Negan's new _no gun_ policy is explained. He's told where Enid, Maggie and Sasha are, and that Noah and Heath are missing, and about Spencer and Olivia's deaths, too, and that Daryl was kidnapped, and Eugene. We've all been asking a lot of questions, and Oliver hasn't really been answering them.

Dad asks, "Did you find her?"

"Carol's just gone."

Michonne asks, "What about Morgan?"

Oliver shrugs.

"Don't worry," Rosita tells him. "We'll look for them soon, okay?"

"No."

"No?"

"Just, no."

He's not looking at us. He's doing that a lot.

Tara says, "You were gone for so long."

"I couldn't come home yet." _Home._ "I just needed to stay away for a while."

"You're back now though, right?"

I ask that. Oliver looks at me.

"Yeah. Yeah, I am."

For the longest time, Oliver's alone with Tara. I don't intrude on their conversation but I know they're talking about Denise. Dad and I talk, too, but the conversation doesn't go very far:

"So..."

"Yeah..."

"Are you..."

"I don't know..."

"Right..."

"Right..."

When Oliver's back, he, Dad and I go help Michonne make a paddock for the one-eared horse, Roan. While we do that, Oliver is avoiding a lot of things all at once. He's still not looking at us much. Me, especially. Except it's working both ways because we're all thinking the same thing and not talking about it. Until finally, he can't stand it anymore.

"They're dead, aren't they?" he asks us. "Glenn and Abraham."

We're quiet. We put down our tools and turn to look at him. Oliver's eyes are big and focussed and his cheeks are blotchy. He looks a little pale. He'd maybe even look ill if he didn't look healthier than I've seen him in months. Dad tells him about that night, the stalking, the trapping, the line-up. "Negan beat 'em to death right in front of us."

Oliver looks at the fence post, asks it, "May I be excused?" He looks at Dad. "Sir."

Dad squeezes Oliver's shoulder and kisses his temple, then the top of his head, whispering something that I don't hear, but I do see it make Oliver's chin shudder. That happens when you whisper in Oliver's ear, I think; he feels the words harder there.

Dad steps aside so he can leave, and then, for an even longer time, Oliver's not around anybody at all. I don't know where he goes and I'm worried about him but I know it's best to wait for him to come back again.

Roan's paddock is built, so Dad, Michonne and I go to the clinic. Rosita is getting the cut on her cheek stitched by Tara. Michonne tells the four of us how she found Oliver, that she spotted him a few hours ago, riding Roan across a pasture a few miles away. She wasn't sure it was him, so she snuck through the trees and waited for him on the road. He didn't tell her a lot, neither does she tell us a lot of what she'd spent the rest of her time out there doing. Just that she found another Savior settlement yesterday.

It's around then that Oliver shows up again. His eyes are red, and when he uses his voice it's worn out and scratchy, like he's been yelling. Nobody says anything about it. He must've heard what we were talking about because he asks how many Saviors she saw. "Hundreds," is the answer. "Maybe more. We're outnumbered, it's not even close."

"We're not backing down anymore," Dad says. "We're gonna fight."

I get this bubbly stinging feeling in my chest, like when me and Enid and Oliver would sneak out to Nowhere. We were being rebellious and I guess it's sort of similar now. This is a rebellion, against Negan. When I look at Oliver I think he's thinking the same thing. His face is hard and thinking.

"We can't," Tara says, "not on our own."

"Like you said, we're outnumbered," Rosita seconds. Michonne looks at her. We're all thinking the same thing, but it's Oliver who says it.

"It's not about if we can or can't," he says. "We have to."

"We're not gonna do it alone," Dad decides. "We'll go to Hilltop. Talk to Gregory and Jesus, and Maggie and Sasha."

"And, Enid," I chime in, a little awkward. Dad gives me a look. Oliver too, except he looks confused, but he must be counting on me filling him in later because he looks back to Dad and asks, "So, Hilltop, they'll help?"

"They owe it to us."

"They owe it to themselves," Michonne says.

We take a second looking around at each other to check we're all on the same page. I realise I'm the only one who hasn't spoken a word yet.

"So," I say, "when do we leave?"

Dad looks at the window. The sunset makes wrinkled shadows across his face. I can only see half of it. "It's late now," he says. "We leave tomorrow."

* * *

The stars are shining tonight and the moon looks like a clipped fingernail.

Me and Oliver are upstairs in my bedroom, fed and quiet and tired. He's sleeping here tonight, since next door's empty; too many people missing or gone or dead or kidnapped. Oliver is stretched along the only bed left in here and I'm sitting over on the window-ledge with the moon on my shoulder. A book is laid open in my lap, and my lamp, next to me on the dresser, lights up the page. I'm doodling in the margins. I'm also explaining my day, starting from Enid and the roller-skates and I'm up to the spaghetti and the shaving lesson. Oliver knows the rest.

He's not talking much, really. He hasn't for a while now. He saw the damage left next door in his bedroom, and then I confessed that I'd done some of it, and then Oliver stopped talking to me. He's mad, even if he isn't really showing it. I can see it. But I can see something else, too. Like a secret under-face. His is guilty, I think.

"I spent all day with Negan," I tell him. I'm doing a lot of things at once. I'm sketching a stick-figure of him (it's him because there's no right hand) sitting inside the circle of _'page 205'_ with a speech bubble that says, _"HOME NOW."_ Except I'm also thinking about what Oliver's tongue tastes like, _and,_ on top of that, I'm still talking: "I think he's weak – somewhere. He's just good at making people think different."

Oliver squeezes his fingers together. I hear hair rub skin. I shiver. He looks at me. I look at book, read...

It's back to unspoken agreements again.

We have a whole census now:

1\. Oliver's back

2\. From wherever

3\. So we kissed for it

4\. And it's... whatever?

— or that's what he seems to think. Like it's nothing. No big deal. No craters left behind or detonated mine fields or worlds split open and turned inside out. Like I didn't make his shoulders bunch up when I put my hands under his shirt and pushed my fingernails across the small of his back. Like he didn't moan through his teeth and whisper my name right inside my mouth...

I, on the other hand, am still so wound up I'm not thinking about anything else. Earlier, while washing up the spaghetti, I forgot how to use the faucet. I keep bumping into things. While brushing my teeth, I almost used shaving cream instead of paste.

What I'm getting at is that if I reeked of Oliver before then now I'm spouting fumes. Gushing testosterone. Blowing — no, nothing. Doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter if my every move is _Oliver_ either. Every _thought_ , even. I'm not going to be the one to bring it all up first.

"But I'm not stupid," I go on. "I know we've never dealt with someone this bad. I know you've gotta be some kind of fucked up to wanna do that to a person. But just because Negan's fucked up, doesn't mean he can't be stopped."

Oliver sniffs. He's not crying. He didn't really cry in front of anybody. But I can still see the shadows under his eyes, the thickness in his voice, that hiccup in his breath. I'm starting to think there are some people who exist who just never get to stop grieving. Oliver's that kind of person, I think. He's stuck inside grieving. He's got his own cave of it. A prison. Trouble is, I don't think he's trying to come out anymore.

"You cuss a lot now, Carl." I look at him. It's the first thing he's said to me in hours. His nose wrinkles. "It doesn't suit you."

"Whatever," I say.

"Yeah," he says back, "whatever."

I look at him to check he's grinning, too. I decide I like cursing. Especially around Oliver when nobody but him hears it. I'd scream every cuss in the world if it was just me and him and a high-up spot. I'd fill up the whole sky with profanity.

We're still looking at each other. In my head, Oliver pulls the sun out of his pocket and throws it at me. I catch it in my hands and push it into my chest. I don't know why I think this. I don't know why I only seem to think like this around him. But I know I like it better.

I look away and flip to the next page to read, only I start a new doodle, and I'm thinking about what his chest's got to feel like, breathing hard between my legs, undressed and – and I look up from the pages to remind him, "We've dealt with bad people before. We can deal with him, too," which is odd. It's usually Oliver reminding _me_ about things.

My thoughts are still blasphemous.

I start thinking of the things I'd be whispering into his ear, whispering so he'd hear it loud and clear, and I'm thinking about what he'd whisper back. All the things. How fast and how hard and how — I shiver again, only it looks like a shrug so I say, "Maybe we got this far because of them. Maybe everything we've been through is why we're still here, and, maybe this is what'll prepare us for worse in the future."

"Think I'd prefer a manual," Oliver says sarcastically.

I scoff. "Wiseass."

He smirks at me.

I say, "We're still here."

He says back, "Not all of us."

I look at him across the room. He's looking at me, too, staring. His eyes go down, then up, until slowly he turns his head to look at the ceiling.

"Why do you have braids in your hair?" I ask.

"Like them?" he asks back.

"That's not answering my question."

"What are you drawing?"

My eye narrows. "Trees."

"You're lying."

I glare at him.

"Tell the truth," he says.

"Will you?"

Oliver pulls his fringe over his eyes to look at it. The braids are shorter, the size of his little finger, so they pop out of his grip like springs. But he keeps hold of the rest of his hair. It's so wavy it's always longer when it's pulled flat; reaches down over his nose. Oliver says, "I like them, that's why."

I almost roll my eyes.

"You gotta answer now," Oliver reminds me.

"You," I say, "that's what I'm drawing. _You._ "

Oliver watches me. "Oh."

My cheeks are stinging. When Oliver shuts his eyes, I let mine wander, like his did. Down... up... down... _down_. His hand is rested on his stomach and the tips of his fingers are touching his jeans. They twitch. I lick my lips, whisper, "Undo them..." only it sounds like, "What's the worst?"

Oliver looks at me, confused. Not surprising. That came out of nowhere.

A little breathless, I explain, "The worst you've been through, since it all started?"

He shrugs.

"Was it losing your hand?" I ask, thinking about his hand a lot.

"Was it losing your eye?" he asks back.

"No," I answer.

"No," he answers.

I want to yell: _The worst was losing you!_ But instead I sigh sharply so I won't. "God dammit. You said you'd tell the _truth_."

He just picks up Patty Catty and fiddles with its button eyes. He said Judith's letting him take care of him. Whether this means Patty Catty or Oliver, I'm not sure.

"Yeah..."

He's so different now. I don't know why, exactly. I didn't know someone could change so much in only a month. I feel like I'm looking through a window that I can't quite see inside of. Want to though. Want to clamber across the room and disappear in him. Climb under his clothes. Push through his skin. Want so bad I have goose-bumps and – and I look away, keep doodling. My face burns.

I don't hear him stand up but I see his feet as he walks over. He only sees the drawing for a second before I snap the book shut and leave it on the floor. Oliver smirks, sits on the window-ledge beside me, then puts his head back on the window. After a moment, I relax, too, and put my head on the window. We both sigh.

The quiet is strange.

I want to put my head on his shoulder, or I want him to put his head on my shoulder. But the concept of touching each other feels like it's guarded by an invisible barrier that we can't pass. It's like we don't know each other again, _again_.

Oliver decides to start singing under his breath.

" _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,  
you make me happy, when—"_

"No, no, not that," I whisper. Oliver looks at me. I explain quietly: "Negan, he – he made me sing him a song. I couldn't think of anything else..."

I watch Oliver's face turn purple. His eyes are on the ceiling again.

"That was our song." He doesn't look like he was supposed to say that, but it comes out anyway, and again: " _Dammit_ , that was _our_ song."

Oliver sighs loudly through his teeth.

 _You brought it up first!_ I think. _You broke your own census!_ So I say, "I remember."

Oliver looks at me. In his head, I hear him say: _No, don't. I didn't mean to..._

"You played it a lot," I go on in spite of him, "last spring. I remember the last time, that night. It was a good night."

Oliver's frowning. He says, "Pete and Reg died."

"I mean before that, our part of it," I say. " _Our_ part was good."

Oliver sighs, like he's annoyed.

I shut my eye.

"Can you sing something else," I ask the inside of my eyelid, "please?"

Oliver nods. I hear it. He sounds close. I don't look to check. "Something else," he whispers, and this time doesn't sound so close. He takes a long breath, then whispers another lullaby.

 _"Do you want to go to the seaside?  
I'm not trying to say that everybody wants to go  
I fell in love on the seaside  
I handled my charm with time and slight of hand_

 _But I'm just trying to love you  
In any kind of way  
But I find it hard to love you girl  
When you're far away  
Away_

 _Do you want to go to the seaside?  
I'm not trying to say that everybody wants to go  
But I fell in love on the seaside  
On the seaside  
In the seaside..."_

I'm thinking it's not only the one mouse heart now, like earlier. It's a million of them. I'm a human reverberation. I don't open my eye, but I know he's staring at me. I can feel it. He's looking right into me. I don't know what I'd do if he were to reach over and touch me. Only then he does touch me because I'm crying, and he's wiping my eyes, and the next thing I know is that I'm hugging him. Or he's hugging me. I don't know. I don't care.

Oliver takes the back of my head and kisses my forehead. I don't know what the kiss means but it lasts for a long time. I shut my eye. I touch his cheeks. Under my palms, Oliver's skin is soft and warm, except his jaw and his chin and above his top lip, where his hair is patchy and stubbly. I kiss him there, on his jaw and chin. His lips touch my nose and I want to move up and kiss them, too, but Oliver's pulling back and I'm taking this hint and pulling back, too, only then I'm just confused because he slips his fingers under my bandage.

I look at him, and then I let him unwrap my face. I let him brush back my hair. And kiss my socket. I was wrong before. Oliver doesn't look at me like I have two eyes, and he doesn't kiss me like it, either. He looks at me and kisses me like I have one, because I _do_. Oliver just doesn't care.

I hold his face and whisper his name and he pushes his hand under my shirt and touches the oldest scar on my chest, too, pressing his whole palm flat against it. There's a _thunk!_ against the window when my elbow jerks back. I pull at my flannel, but again, Oliver stops me.

"No, no, you can keep it on."

Slowly, I re-sit my clothes again. Oliver looks nervous. And then he stands up and starts pacing the room.

"They're only downstairs," he whispers. "We shouldn't. _I_ shouldn't."

When I catch my breath, I stand up and go to him. I'm taller than him, a little, except I'm wearing my shoes right now and he isn't, so that probably gives me a slight height advantage. My eyes are just level to the braids in his fringe. I really do like them.

"Hey," I whisper.

His eyes are on the floor. I touch his shoulder, and then Oliver steps into me. He puts his chin on my collar and his amp against my chest gently.

"Did... Did someone hurt—"

"No," he says quickly. "No. Nobody hurt me. Swear. I... I just... I didn't come back to make you..."

"You're not making me do anyth—"

"I – I just mean..." He takes a steep breath. "I really don't want you to think I'm here to use you. That's not it. I don't want to hurt anybody. It always — I... I just want to be here and for that to be enough."

I'm staring at him. "So, what're you asking me?"

"I'm not," Oliver says. "I'm not asking you for anything. That's it. I'm just here. Whatever happens, I'm here. I'm staying. I just... I want that to be enough right now, please."

He's saying it like he's not sure it's possible.

"Carl? You – you okay?"

I'm confused and anxious. It's just that he's asking it strangely. 'It always'? 'It always' what? And what did he mean earlier? It was only supposed to be me? Was it not?

I don't know if I can ask.

I don't know if I want to know the answers.

"Oliver..."

He just shakes his head, like he's afraid of my questions, like he doesn't know what to do.

"Whatever it is, you – you can tell me," I say. "Look, I'm not expecting anything from you. I just thought, after earlier, you'd just kinda... want to."

"I was happy to see you."

"I was happy to see you, too."

"I am."

"Yeah."

"Really happy," Oliver says. "Really really."

We're staring.

"You're enough," I tell him. "Really really."

And this is what makes Oliver start to cry.

"Hey," I say, "hey, hey, it's okay. It's okay."

He almost doubles over. I hold him tightly. Still, his sobs become hard and heavy and torrential. It scares me. I think that whatever is making him so sad, _this_ sad, has got to be the thing that was the worst. Not me or his arm. Something he can't even talk to me about.

For a while I rock him side to side in the middle of my bedroom until Oliver stops crying. I step on the feather-end of a dart Negan left on the floor and kick it out of the way.

I whisper, "Do you wanna come downstairs with me?"

Oliver just nods. He wipes his eyes while I rewrap my face, and we don't unlink our fingers while we go down into the living room together.

Dad and Michonne are here, watching Judith's baby monitor together on the couch. I have Patty Catty in my hand and once Oliver and I curl up in a heap in the armchair across the room, I sit the plush toy on his lap. He holds it loosely.

Oliver and I don't need to speak, we just sit and watch my parents grin at my sister through the monitor together. They ask us how we're doing and we say we're fine and then they're just grinning at us like they' haven't felt this happy in a while because they haven't. Dad and Michonne haven't acted like this since before the night with the Saviors. After, I'd go into their room to get Judith's pacifier. I'd see them sleeping as far apart on the bed as possible. I guess something came back to them today, too.

"Glad you're home, Oliver," Michonne tells him.

"I'm glad you are, too," he mumbles. She looks at him. It's just that it's a strange thing for him to say. She was only gone a day unlike over a month like him. But Oliver's never had a shortage of strange things to say.

I tuck my forehead into the crook of his neck. Oliver plays with my hair.

"Spare room's not got a bed," Dad tells him. "You'll be more comfortable down here on the couch."

"Dad."

"Carl."

"He can sleep in my room."

Dad gives me one of his looks.

I give him the same look.

"You don't have two beds anymore."

Michonne laughs. When Dad asks why she says, "You really are special if you think they'd use both beds in the first place."

"Guys."

Again, I get Dad's look.

"It's cool," Oliver says quickly, "I'll take the couch."

"G'boy," Dad says. Oliver looks at him like this is the nicest thing Dad's ever said to him. I roll my eyes.

A while passes before my dad starts falling asleep. Michonne thinks it's cute, but he starts snoring and me and Oliver keep giving her annoyed glares, so she wakes Dad up and takes him upstairs to bed. Oliver and I grin and shake our heads and say goodnight to them.

The house sounds quiet and calm, with small burring from the fridge and soft whispering from upstairs, until that stops, too.

"Hey," Oliver whispers to me.

"Hey," I whisper back. I can't see his eyes but I can watch his mouth move.

"I miss the stars."

See; no shortage of strange things.

"C'mon," I smile, "let's go and find them."

He gets up, takes my hand, and then we're outside heading down to the lake. We sit by the shore, hand in hands. My back is against a tree and Oliver is laid on his back beside me with his head rested on my lap. All three of our eyes are up on the stars and the moon and the mad impossible space between them all.

"It's crazy."

"Yeah..."

"I can look right at them," he says, "and I still miss them like crazy."

I look down at him. I wasn't expecting him to say that.

"It's like looking at you," Oliver goes on, "sometimes..." He trails. "All the time."

"What?"

Oliver shrugs, eyes still on the sky. I can't stop smiling. I look at his face and touch it with my fingertips. His lips and his nose and his eyebrows and eyelids. Oliver closes them, his eyes, and puts his hand up over his head on my waist.

He whispers, "I want to kiss you so bad."

"You can."

He takes a long and deep breath, and then he sits up and climbs onto my lap. I already know he won't kiss me. He hugs me and I hug him back. He'd touched my scars before, pressed his fingers to every one, so I touch his, too. Every. Single. One. The one on his temple and his lips. The bullet scar under his collarbone and the big jagged one along his stomach. Oliver sits quietly, tucking his chin into my collar while I slip my hands around his back and ribcage. I touch the scar on his shoulder-blade, and the other few shallow and faded ones across the left side of his back.

Oliver tells me a story about a king with lots of secrets, and a great kingdom ruled on hope and pomegranates. Oliver tells me about a lost boy who finds himself there, in this kingdom. There's unrequited love and fist fights and mandatory choir practice, with pig hunting and mood-altering drugs and daily cobbler. I don't know why he tells me this story. I guess it's something from Nell's notebook – since only she could come up with things as outlandish and crazy as pet tigers and stoner Stewards who say sentences like, "Chill it up," and, "Deuces."

I'm laughing. Oliver sounds kind of sad, but he's laughing, too.

"Wait, how did the lost boy find himself, in the end?" I ask. "Did he fall in love with the ghost? Or was it the faun?"

"Neither," Oliver answers softly. "He couldn't love them, not like that."

"Oh," I mumble. "Sad."

Oliver shuts his eyes and sighs. That guilty secret under-face is back. He hides it in my shoulder. After a second, he mumbles, "He didn't mean to hurt anybody. It's just... he was already in love with somebody else."

"Who?"

Oliver looks at me.

"Come on," I say, "who was it?"

He shrugs. "Some guy. A soldier."

"Do they live happy ever after?"

The pause is strange.

"Do you think they should?" he asks me.

"Sure."

"Even though he hurt the faun?" Oliver asks. "Even though he was using him, and the ghost? And the others?"

I shrug. "Well, like you said, he never meant to hurt anybody. He didn't mean for the faun to fall in love with him. He wasn't who was making the ghost sad. And, I mean, he can still fix some things."

"He can?"

"Well, yeah. He can't stop the way the faun feels, but the lost boy can still apologise for the mean stuff he said. And he can help the ghost with whatever's making them sad, too. Just because some things didn't work out, doesn't mean the lost boy shouldn't be happy."

Oliver sighs.

"They'll live happy ever after," I say. "The lost boy and the soldier. Nell always wrote happy endings."

Oliver nods. We look at the stars for a little while longer. I know he knows more about them than I do, but I still go ahead and point out all the constellations I know, and he'll correct me if I get it wrong or he'll point out more, and some, we'll make up by ourselves. After a while, as I'm talking about the North Star, I realise Oliver's staring at me. He doesn't say anything. He just tips forward and kisses me. His kiss on my lips is soft and delicate and I grin the whole way through.

"What?" he asks, smiling too.

"It's crazy," I say, "I can look right at you, too, and I still miss you. I can kiss you and I still miss kissing you."

"Crazy."

"Crazy..." We kiss and laugh and I tell him, "I thought you were dead. God, I really thought you were dead this time."

"Me, too."

I look at him curiously.

"I think that's what I was thinking, all that time," he explains. "That I was dead. And for a while, I was. But I got to come back from it. I think that's why it felt so bad for so long, why I wanted it to end. I wasn't dead, not really. The dead don't feel. I was hurting myself, pushing people away, taking stupid risks and blaming myself for things I couldn't control, and I'm still not doing everything right, but, it was me. _I_ was killing me."

He smiles then.

"Can I be a nerd for a second?"

I laugh and nod.

"Okay," he sighs, "so, you know that comic, Tokyo Ghoul?"

I'm still laughing and nodding.

"Well, I've been thinking about it a lot."

"Yeah?" I ask.

"Yeah," he smiles. "There's this quote."

"What is it?"

"' _All we can do is live while losing things'_."

Both of us are sort of crying.

I call him a, "Nerd." And he laughs. And then he tells me, "I'm not losing you anymore." And then I take his face in my palms and kiss him. When he kisses me back, I put my hands under his shirt. I touch his sternum. Count his heartbeats. He feels so crazily solid, so crazily firm, so crazily _real_. His ribs and his spine and his waist and his chest. He laughs again.

"Tickles."

"Oh."

"It's okay." He touches our foreheads and whispers into my mouth: " _Sei la mia anima gemella. E non posso vivere senza di te._ "

I don't need to know what he's saying. I'm already sweating. We kiss again, but it's not soft or delicate this time. Oliver's kisses are fierce and rough and deep. Mine are, too. I see stars when I'm pushed onto my back, and then he's knelt over me, unbuckling my pants, slipping my belt away. My flannel is pulled off my shoulders and my shirt is yanked up over my head. I forget myself for a moment. Oliver is kissing me but it's hard to kiss him back when I'm feeling so many things at once. He's whispering into my ear, and it's _me_ feeling it this time, his words, how fast and how hard and — and my free hand is up, gripped around his head while he takes care of the rest of our clothes. I draw him close. I breathe in his smell, his voice, his taste... how he feels. He's grunting. I think I am, too. I look into his eyes. I see the whole sky in them. And then it hits me that I'm never going to love anybody like I love him.

"You're enough... Oliver... _You're enough..._ "

And this time I really hope he believes me.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Seaside_ by The Kooks.

After watching the latest episode, I realise I may have fucked up :3 ha... ha... wish me luck.

Fyi: if it wasn't obvious, Esme was the ghost in the fairy tale and Joey was the faun – a faun is a mythical creature part-human part-goat.

^Oliver promised Carol he wouldn't tell anybody about the kingdom, so found a loop hole that wouldn't hurt her, he hopes. Also, he's still feeling pretty guilty about Ez and Joey. Joey especially, so this chapter wouldn't have ended the way it did if Oliver hadn't talked to Carl about his thoughts on the story he told. Not sure if that was wise... but I guess he hasn't really done anything wrong in that respect. Carl would _probably_ just like to know the story wasn't fiction.

On another note, to clarify, Oliver isn't bigger/taller/more muscly than Carl, at least not by as much as Carl made it sound. They're more or less the same and I keep changing who's taller/bigger anyway XD Carl's only noticing Oliver so much now because in his time at the Kingdom he's been eating properly, so he's filled out a lot. Plus, hormones. Plus-plus, patchy-goatee.

As always,  
Happy reading.


	41. Hearts Still Beating, Part 4: Nowhere

**RHatch89** Thanks!

 **LittleHarleyQuinn5620** same...

 **The Sorrowful Deity** Yeeeeeah...

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** me too T.T

 **XxEvilKittyxX** oh my God. I don't even know.

 **The Flash Fanatic** Thank you!

 **Soulless Bilbo** xD thanks

 **IWalkOnMyOwn** gah! Damn! I don't even know. It's... so fucking good.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

When I wake up, the world looks like an old black and white movie. My flannel is dirty. I put it in laundry. There's a pair of glasses on the sink. I take them downstairs and look for the boy they belong to.

Oliver's a million miles away, except he's only walking out of the living room. Still, I walk right into him.

" _Oof!_ "

There's an apple in his mouth and a cup of water in his hand. He tries to catch the splash mid-air, but most lands across his sock. He frowns— _the frown—_ down at it.

"Oops."

"Ehm jugeddih foo."

I take the apple out of his mouth for him.

Oliver chews, swallows, then tries again: "I'm just getting food."

He's wearing a new set of clothes, too. No dirt. I don't know why I think about this. No, I do. It's because of last night. No. No, it's because of the T-shirt he's wearing. It's an old, tatty one with that Spanish guy's face on it, the guy who's meant to symbolise revolution or something, and it's a size too small. _Tight._

"Carl?"

I want to reply but instead I make a weird swallow-hum noise. I look at his face. And then I blink, deceased – I'm sure of it. I don't know why either. Apparently you can spend a whole night with somebody but you can still be so terrified of them the next day that you can't even speak. How did this happen? How did we swap personalities?

I'm looking down at this strange hollow dip between Oliver's collarbones when he asks me, "Those mine?" My eye snaps to his face again. I nod. Oliver says, "Cool."

He tips his head—I realise this is him waiting for me to sit them on his face for him, since his hand's full.

I sit them on his face. I also put the apple down on his cup, balanced on the circular rim, and then he walks around me and goes to the door. "Go shower," he tells me. "Find me when you're ready, okay?"

"Okay."

* * *

When I'm ready, the world's started getting its colour back again. It's still early—the sun's around but it won't be up for a while. Oliver's in Roan's pasture, doing chores. I sit at the work bench across, sketchpad on my lap.

I've been studying Oliver, ever since he got back. His face and his hands and his chest. Oliver doesn't have any bruises. None that I saw last night, at least, and _—oh man—_ last night, I saw... _a lot_. He seems okay, too, better inside his head. He even wears short sleeves.

He does a lot of things alone now—I mean, he did before, but not like this, like he's trying to leave as little impact as possible.

In the corner of my page, I do a fast sketch of him. In it, over his shoulders, he's dragging a heavy sack of secrets. I know there has to be a lot of them.

The pasture is small, so Oliver finishes clean-out quickly and moves on to tending to Roan. I don't ask how he lost his ear. Lost body parts are something that don't need to be brought up in conversation unless the person who lost it brings it up first, even if that person is a horse. Roan is calm and still while Oliver puts this weird cream on the scar. Oliver whispers to him and looks into his eyes and Roan looks back. It's strange. I didn't know Oliver was good with horses. But he is. He's really good.

A little while later he and Roan are doing a join-up exercise, which is what Oliver wanted to show me.

Join-up is this trust exercise for horses created by some old guy who wrote a bunch of books about it. It gets you thinking like a horse, or it's supposed to, I'm not totally sure. Michonne told me about it once, and tried it with Flame but could never quite get it. Oliver must've found some of the books, taught himself, or someone else taught him. I don't ask. Just study.

Watching Oliver work is like watching a storm late at night from the warm cover of your own porch.

Without speaking, and with small hand gestures, he has Roan trotting all the way around him at the edge of the pen. No halter or rope or anything. Oliver stands there in the centre, pivoting... _watching_ , like he's chasing Roan away in his head, only Oliver is completely in control. And Roan— _man—_ Roan is hopelessly in love with him. Sometimes you can just see it, especially with horses. And anyway, I know the feeling.

Oliver gets Roan to stop and turn directly to him. They watch each other. All their attention. Solely on each other.

Solely  
on  
each  
other...

I put my knees up on the bench and hug them, feeling this feeling like my whole chest is filling with the wavelength of every colour.

Oliver steps forward. Roan's ear twitches to the side, then back to him. Then, when Oliver turns and walks away, in a single moment the animal is by his side, rushing there like he wants to be nowhere else in the universe and he doesn't. Roan wants Oliver and Oliver and _only Oliver_ , and again, I know the feeling.

Roan matches Oliver's steps, leg to leg, hoof to boot, while Oliver walks all the way around the pen without so much as looking at him. They don't even touch. Until they do touch: Oliver turns and holds out his hand, and for a tiny second Roan just looks at it, his hand, and then, with one hoofbeat, fur and skin is pressed and the whole pen bursts. Colour everywhere. Crimson and blue turn to indigo around the fenceposts. Yellow and green turn to lime through their hair. Magenta sprouts between the seedlings and amber swirls in the dust under their legs.

 _They both_ become _them_ —the singular kind.  
I don't know how else to explain it.

From the ground, Oliver jumps up onto Roan's bare back, takes a hold of his mane, and flashes me a grin. I almost fall off the table.

He nudges Roan with his heels, and then the horse is walking around the small pasture, and then he's picking up into a lope. Oliver didn't even seem to ask, just _thought_. It's like they're dancing. I didn't know horses acted like this. I didn't know _Olivers'_ acted like this.

He's a centaur.

Roan shakes his head and Oliver leans forward and hugs around his broad ashen shoulders, moving with him in his hips and his spine and his knees, laughing and struggling and shuffling as not to fall off—Roan slows down so he doesn't, and is allowed to stop and graze.

Oliver lies back so that he's stretched all the way along Roan's body, spine to spine, back of head rested on the smooth dip above tail. Oliver's eyes are closed, his mouth open and smiling, the early sun on his skin. He looks at me and then I see it. The sky.

Not just in Oliver's eyes this time, but his whole face.

He sits up, pets along Roan's neck, then dismounts. I'm losing my mind. Oliver climbs the fence and takes a seat beside me on the bench. There are pale red hairs on his clothes.

We don't speak for a while. I'm not sure what to say. I'm not sure of anything right now. I'm not familiar with this. Oliver doesn't even look like Oliver anymore. Oliver looks older and more confident. There's hair in new places and his voice is lower. He used to look away from people's eyes because he was shy, now he looks away to hide his secrets.

Oliver takes an apple core from where he'd left it on the bench and tosses it into the paddock. Roan picks it up and stares me down the whole time he chews. I'm pretty sure Roan and I are competing now. Today, Roan is winning.

"He'll get used to you," I'm told. "He just doesn't like getting looked at weird, or touched."

"Unless it's you."

"Trust me," Oliver says, "it took a while."

Earlier, I'd tried sitting on the fence but Roan kept rushing at me, bearing his teeth. I've never been afraid of horses but Roan is terrifying.

"Come on, man," Oliver snickers, "I thought you of all people would be able to sympathise." He's talking about my eye. We've never said it aloud; that I only let Oliver touch it, but he knows it. Regardless, when he decides to put his head on my shoulder, today's score goes up.

Roan: one.  
Carl: one.

I look up at the sky and shut my eye. A breeze rolls in. It smells of cold and dirt and grass, like last night. I shut my eye, breathe.

"Oh, cool," I hear Oliver say softly. "That's awesome."

I've left my pad open on an unfinished sketch of Oliver as a centaur – I may have given it some artistic licence. In the drawing, his hair is so long it hangs in wavy vines over his shoulders, all the way down his bare chest. He's about to look through but I snatch it away from him.

"Come on, man."

"No."

"Dude," he says, "I already know you draw your own porn."

"How'd you know that?!"

"Didn't..."

"Whatever."

"But now you have to share with me."

"Why?" I ask. "Why do I have to share my porn with— _Jesus,_ it's not porn. It's..."

"Porn."

" _Explicit content._ "

Oliver laughs, then shrugs. "You used to show me."

"Yeah, well I used to have two eyes, but things change."

Oliver grimaces. "Sarcasm's gonna bite you in the ass one day."

"Oliver..."

"Carl..."

"This is different."

"I _like_ 'different'."

I narrow my eyes at him. He isn't going to let this drop. And not all of what's in here is 'explicit content' anyway. It's mostly just disturbing, so, with a sigh, I hand him my sketchpad. "Fine."

My heart is pounding.

Oliver looks at every page slowly. Takes in every detail. Some he looks like he recognises, and other's he just looks really interested in. The ones of my eye make him frown. The ones of the walkers make him hold the page a little tighter. And the cubist one of me falling apart and crawling makes him say, "Whoa..." There are a few of him as he goes through, innocent, but then he gets to the more recent ones, further back... His eyebrows come up. He pushes his glasses up his nose. Doesn't look at me. Just puts his chin on his amputation and leans forward to look down at the open page. My face is burning. I drew nothing below the belt but every page still screams: _I was definitely hard while I did this one. And this one. And this. Oh, and definitely this one._

Oliver closes the pad and looks at me. And then he lifts his hand to the back of my head and gently kisses my fringe. I'm thinking about how forehead kisses are my favourite kind of kiss from him. I'm thinking that every kind of kiss is my favourite kind of kiss from him.

Oliver slips off the bench and stretches. _Cool,_ I think, perplexed and shocked and feeling like a boyish scribble. Since when did Oliver get _cool?_ I wipe my eyes.

"Can you come with me for something?"

"Where?" I ask.

Oliver grins and clips me in the chest with his fist. "Nowhere, man."

* * *

The clouds look like cotton candy.

We're running. Running through the trees and pushing through shrubs and grabbing hands and shirt sleeves. Running, running and running. Running so hard the air can't catch up and we leave it behind us. We crack right through the sound barrier, and only have to stop when Oliver really does run out of air. I ask if he's okay.

"Keep it down." He's wheezing. "Last thing... we need is... to ring any... any dinner bells."

He uses his inhaler. The fact that he still has one means he found more somewhere. I want to ask where. I want to ask what he's really been doing. I want to ask why Oliver didn't wake me up to go pick apples with him earlier, and how he became a centaur, and if he shaves with the grain or against it. I want Oliver to tell me why he doesn't wear beanies anymore, and where his shoulders came from, and what happened to his voice and why he cut his hair and where he got his glasses and that Thunder 9... but I don't say anything because four walkers stagger out of the forest ahead.

"Dammit," Oliver sighs, "spoke too soon."

He puts down his backpack and takes out two at almost the same time, swiping out their legs and driving his knife through their temples. I take out one. Something in its neck bursts, spattering my arms in puss and blood. The smell pulls bile up in my throat. The last walker grabs Oliver from behind, and in the same second he spins around on the spot and splits its face in two. He steps back as it fall, and then he looks at me. I close my mouth.

Oliver points. I don't know why until—"Your bandage slipped."

I turn away and reach up, but my hands are filthy.

"Here, man," Oliver says, stepping around me. Somehow, his hands are clean. "I got it."

Gently, he re-wraps my head for me. I wipe my hands on my shirt and hold up the parts of my hair that he tells me to, all the while avoiding looking at him, except not. I look at him and _I look at him_. And he looks at me, too. He must see the whole thing. He knows what it looks like, of course he does, but it's different now, lately it's more like he's seeing a whole new wound.

When he's finished, his mouth twitches into something like a smile only not. I almost miss it. I want to see the sky in his face again. I want to ask him to show me. But Oliver turns away, grabs his backpack, and walks into the trees.

Nowhere's only a few minutes away, through the next grove. Once we arrive, I take a seat where I always sit. I guess it hasn't been that long since we were here, but it's never been just the two of us, not since I lost my eye. Still, just being here is making Oliver think about Enid. I can tell. He sits across from me, and with his thumb, draws around one of the carvings she made in the log.

"You got her there? Hilltop?"

"She didn't need me to. She can take care of herself."

Oliver lets go of the log and nods.

"I kissed her," I say.

Oliver squints up through the trees, then at me.

I look at my hands. "Thought it was gonna be the last time I saw her. I thought—I don't know."

Oliver looks back at her carving.

"She'll be happy to see you," I say.

Oliver smiles at me, like he's looking forward to it. I get this feeling like now is the time to change the subject.

"You were good with those walkers. It's like you're stronger now or something."

Oliver grins. His cheeks flush and he looks awkward and boyish-scribble-like, too. But then he cocks an eyebrow, and that _cool_ is back again.

"Turns out there are perks of not yacking after every meal," he says.

"You've been eating okay?"

Nods.

"That's good."

Nods again.

"And, you're not hurting yourself anymore?"

Shrugs this time. "Gets hard, sometimes, but no."

"That's really good."

Oliver smiles wanly.

My cheeks are warm. I shrug. "Didn't mean to ring the dinner bell, before."

Oliver grins. "You're still very loud."

I shove him, but it backfires because he gets up. He's chuckling. He roots through his backpack and takes out several belongings. First is Nell's notebook – I haven't seen that in a while, even Oliver looks a little relieved when he finds it in a hidden inner pocket. He also grabs out a deer carving, two rings, Lizzie's knife, a yoyo, a photograph of a rainbow coloured zebra torn out of a book or magazine, and a small broken glass— _oh..._

Oliver notices me look.

"Is that..."

"Bong."

"For drugs?"

"It's broken."

I give him a look.

He gives me a look back.

Oliver tells me he won't keep it all in his room anymore, that he won't get rid of it either, so he's going to bury it all here. I accept this. He retrieves the glass jar from the locker and empties out the M&M crumbs—he, Enid and I ate them all on his birthday. While he puts his stuff inside the jar, I ask questions.

"So you got it all from home? Lorton?"

"Not all of it. Carving was." He thumbs at the snapped off leg. " _Nonno_ made it, gave it to me last time I saw him. It's called _Il Nostro Piccolo Segreto._ "

"What's it mean?"

"It's a secret."

"Alright."

"No, I mean that's what it means."

"Oh."

He laughs.

"What about the rainbow zebra?"

Oliver grins goofily and holds it up. I see the writing on the back:

 _Oliver and Lani  
are gay  
((exceptOliverisactuallybi))_

I hardly get time to read it all before Oliver snatches the photo back, like he suddenly remembers he wasn't supposed to show me. His face has dropped. Mine, too.

"Who's Lani?"

"Somebody," he blurts. "A girl, friend."

"Girlfriend?"

"No." He tilts the picture. "She's, uh, gay."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Why's she not here?"

"I left a message."

"You're being very vague."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Can't tell."

"Me?"

"Anyone."

"Did you do something wrong?"

"I've done a lot of things wrong."

"Did you leave because of something you did wrong?"

"No."

"Was she the only friend?"

"No."

"How many?"

"Some."

"Vague," I say.

"Vague," Oliver answers.

"Will you ever tell me?"

He just stares at me.

"Are you scared?"

"Yes."

"Are you hiding from something?"

"No."

"Are you protecting something?"

"Yes."

"Are you protecting—"

"Please stop asking about this now."

I sigh slowly. I have a hunch. I think I know what Oliver's been doing, or at least, who he's been with. He found Carol, I think. Except that doesn't explain how sad he was last night, how hard he cried, so I realise that if my theory is right then either something happened to her and he came home, or he decided to come home anyway.

"Are you lying to me?"

"No."

He asked me not to ask, so I don't. I just sigh and tell him, "Okay."

Oliver isn't breathing.

I change subject: "The yoyo Tara's?"

Nods.

"And the rings?"

"My parents'."

"Why'd you take them?"

Oliver hesitates, picks up a twig, and tosses it into the distance. As it soars, he grunts, "Guess I'd like to give one to you one day, if you wanted."

"W—What?"

Oliver looks at me, shrugs. "It's whatever."

But it's not whatever.

Nothing about this is whatever.

Oliver knows this, of course. His face is purple. I think my cheeks are making sparks, so I look at the last object and try not to sound too emotional when I ask, "How come you're leaving Lizzie's knife?"

"Oh," Oliver sighs casually. "It's got a bad reputation."

I frown.

Oliver shrugs. "Guess I've got my hunting knife now. And—I don't know, I kinda miss my machete. Lizzie's knife is falling apart anyway. It'll be too damaged to carry soon."

He smiles but I don't fall for it.

"I'm not leaving them behind," Oliver says. "They're still here."

I look at his wrist. I'd noticed the new watch earlier. The thing is, the head is the same, Lizzie's, but the straps are different. Pale magenta, with Mika's bracelet intertwined through the braiding... But I realise something: Oliver couldn't have fixed and replaced his watch with only five fingers. It's impossible without a pair of hands. Like braids.

I think he knows I'm on to him. He isn't lying to me, I know that, but he is missing out details. _Big_ details. I distract myself thinking about the one day.

"Anything you wanna put in?" he asks me.

"Don't think so," I reply, reaching into my pocket, "but, uh. I have something to give you." I show him the inhaler I kept and put it in his hand. Oliver squeezes it, then kisses my thumb.

"Thanks."

I shrug.

"We should head home soon," he tells me.

"You still call it home."

His turn to shrug.

I ask, "Why did you come back?"

"Carl..."

I talk over him: "I'm not—I'm not asking you to tell me where you were. I get that you can't tell me everything. Okay? Just, why? I gotta know why you came back. It's my business. So _why,_ Oliver? Why'd you come back?"

Oliver winces, like he's going to speak but—

"Walkers."

We're crouching, watching them through the trees. Not many. There usually isn't around these parts, not since the walker purge last spring. They aren't coming this way, so Oliver grabs my hand, leaves his stuff, and we hide in the hollowed-out tree trunk.

We wait a while, long enough not to hear them anymore. Oliver looks out, a hand up by my head on the bark.

"Oliver?"

They're gone but he still doesn't come back inside.

"I thought maybe you were coming out here to talk about us, but maybe there's just nothing to talk about anymore."

He looks at me, but says nothing.

"Is this how it's gonna be now?" I insist. "Just friends. Friends who—"

" _No._ "

I stare at him. "You told me goodbye, Oliver."

"So did you."

Something in his face cracks. I was wrong. It's not cool. It's a snowstorm, cold as ice. This close, I feel it. He frosts out the whole trunk. And this is how I realise that Oliver hasn't forgiven me.

"I'm sorry." I haven't told him that yet. Not once. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too." This is the first time he's said it to me, too.

"I left you," I whisper.

"I didn't need to see it."

"No," I say, shrugging off Déjà vu, "I'm not talking about that." I'm talking about that night, when I walked away and shouldn't have. But I can't get those words out. Maybe Oliver knows. Maybe he knows because last night I didn't walk away, and he didn't either.

Oliver frowns out to the forest for a second, then looks down at his hand and touches the watch to his lips. "Everything works out the way it's supposed to," he whispers to it, then to me, "I needed to go. I needed to stay away. I got better."

"Then why did you come back?" I whisper.

Oliver is staring at me, swallowing nervously. His eyebrows arch and he presses our foreheads. My head jostles back a little when he pushes. I keep looking at him, up at his eyes, even this close they're gold when they catch the sunrise. _Jeez._ I've fallen for a guy who doesn't just keep the sun in his pocket, but his eyes, too. He's like Enid with the moon. The sky is pink, and it's turning Oliver's eyes a new kind of gold like rose gold. I look at Oliver's lips, too —petals— and watch them move.

"Because," he says, "I am so in love with you."

Everything falls silent then. That white noise Negan made me listen to is gone completely. I didn't realise it hadn't gone away. It was thick and heavy and powerful. But now it's totally gone and Oliver is stood right in from of me.

I step into him. His chest is wide open and I can fit right inside it. He brushes my hair behind my ear, runs a thumb across my cheek, and I unzip his coat and wrap my arms around his chest. His flannel shirt is rough against my palms, and goose-bumps are forming like tiny volcanoes along his throat and collar. I want to touch them, his goose-bumps. I want to push my hands under his T-shirt and press my palms to his stomach. And I do. I put my hands across his chest, up up up so that my blood-stained fingernails poke out through of the head-hole in his collar.

His back's against the bark, and moss and dirt stick in his hair and clothes. I can feel it. And when I kiss him, I can feel the sun in his lips, too—the searing heat of it. It's in his hand. I catch fire when he presses it flat to the centre of my chest, and then moves it up, to my jaw and cheek and ear.

"This is it," I whisper into him. "This is the Big Bang, Oliver."

* * *

Before long, Dad and Michonne track us. We hear them coming just as we're finished burying Oliver's things. He hasn't told me how he feels about leaving it all, and I don't ask. We rush to collect our things and meet them far enough from Nowhere before they find it.

"What the hell're you doing out here?!" Dad's pissed.

"You couldn't leave a note?" Michonne, too.

"We're sorry," Oliver and I say at the same time. We give each other a look. Oliver lets me speak—he's also smirking. "Dad, we haven't been out long. We were on our way back."

They look furious.

"We're fine," I insist. "We're not kids anymore."

"You're not, huh?"

"No," I answer. "Just look at yesterday—"

"Yeah, look at yesterday," Dad cuts me off. "Look at what happened."

I shrink. Shrivel up like a slug in salt. I think Michonne tugs on Dad's wrist because he looks back at her for a second, but I can't be sure because my eye's on the ground. Dad looks at us both again, softer.

"Have you both had food?"

We nod.

"Sir?"

Dad looks at him.

"When can I have my gun back?"

I see some old memory wash over Dad's face at this. He looks at me and I remember it, too, that morning we were tending to Violet and her piglets. I'd asked him the same thing.

"Now," Dad seems to decide. "I'll get it for you. Meet us at home in ten, both of you. We've got a busy day ahead."

* * *

We travel twenty miles from Alexandria to Hilltop.

Most of our people think we're going on a supply run, Dad, Michonne, Tara, Rosita, Oliver and I. It's better people don't know yet. We need to see who's on our side first.

Maggie sees us from the watchtower first. She looks the way he did, Glenn, when I first met him, almost; an honest smile and short hair tucked under a cap. I think Dad thinks the same thing because for a second he stops, but Michonne reminds him to keep walking by slipping her hand into his.

Maggie turns inside Hilltop.

"Sasha! Enid!"

We're let in through the gate. Oliver is trembling. I can see Bean coming. He leaps up into Oliver's arms and almost knocks him out. Tara's laughing and Oliver is already crying and growling, " _Bean the Beast!_ " into the fur on his chest.

Dad swallows Maggie up in his arms.

He asks her, "You're okay?"

And she says, "I'm okay. The baby's okay – all of us."

Dad looks at her like he might cry. "You were right," he says, "right from the start. You told us to get ready to fight. I didn't listen, and I couldn't. I can now."

Daryl and Jesus emerge around a barn together. Dad is there in seconds. Daryl falls into his chest. I've never seen them hug. It's tight and desperate and Daryl is crying. By the time the rest of us have all greeted Maggie and Sasha, Dad and Daryl are still hugging.

Enid's here, too, waiting in the background in that Enid way. She looks at my hand in Oliver's, and smiles. I smile, too – the small and relieved kind of smile. Oliver hasn't noticed her, so I tug him to look, and then it's like he's seeing those ten green balloons all over again.

He grabs her. Their hug is like Dad and Daryl's hug. Except Oliver takes each side of Enid's face and kisses her forehead, then presses them, their foreheads. Enid's crying her eyes out. Enid's trying so hard to stop that she's making squeaky noises. He holds his arm out to me and I let him pull me into the tightest and messiest three-person bear-hug known to life, and we're all laughing and hiccupping inside of the same air.

Eventually we pull apart, and by now Dad and Daryl have stopped hugging, too. Daryl returns Dad's gun, and everything feels like it's falling back into place again, every little piece, one by one, while Dad leads us all inside Barrington House together.

* * *

We're in a big office that looks like a Mihály Munkácsy painting. There are tall wood-varnished doors and big windows and a liquor cabinet along one of the walls and a bookshelf along two others. There are mirrors and paintings and candle-lamps, and chairs that look more like art than furniture. Above the fireplace is a big empty space, like there might've been a painting up there.

Gregory wears a brown suit. His hair is grey and combed-over, and his pale eyes are having trouble looking at us. In short, talking to Gregory is like talking to a child.

"No! No way in _hell_. That was _not_ the deal."

He's exhausting.

"You people _swore_ you could take the Saviors out, and you _failed_. So _any_ arrangement we had is now _done_ – null and void. Huh? We aren't trade partners, we aren't friends, and we never met." He leans over his desk. "Hmm? We don't know each other."

He sits.

"I _owe_ you nothing. In fact, you owe me for taking in the refugees, at _great_ personal risk."

"Oh, you were very brave staying in here while Maggie and Sasha saved this place," Jesus argues. "Your courage was _inspiring_."

"Hey, don't you work for me? Aren't we friends?"

"Gregory, we already started this," Dad says.

" _You_ started it."

" _We_ did," Dad insists. "And we're gonna win."

"These are killers."

"Is this how you want to live? Under their thumb, killing your people?"

"S-Sometimes we don't get to choose what our life looks like. Sometimes, Ricky–" _Ricky._ "–you have to _count_ the blessings you have."

"How many people can we spare?" Maggie asks. "How many people here can fight?"

" _"We"_?" Gregory scoffs. "I don't even know how many people we have, _Margaret_. And does it even matter? I mean, w-what are you gonna do? Start a platoon of _sorghum_ farmers? 'Cause that's what we got. _They grow things._ They're not gonna want to fight."

Tara interjects: "You're wrong. When people have the chance to do the right thing, they usually step up. I mean, people just–"

"L-Let me stop you before you break into song, okay?" Gregory clears his throat. "And, by the way, who would train all this cannon fodder?"

At the same time, Sasha says, "I will." And Rosita growls, "Give me a week."

" _Rhetoooooricaaaal_ ," he sings back, "okay? I don't want to know! I never want to hear another word about _any_ of it, ever."

"Would we be better off without the Saviors, yes or no?" Rick yells.

"Yeah. Sure, okay."

"So," Michonne reiterates, "what will you do to fix the problem?"

"I didn't say we had a problem. You did." Gregory's turned away. He puts his arm out behind him and makes a pushing motion at her. "And what happens outside of my purview is _outside_ of my purview."

"What the hell, man?" Daryl growls. "You're either with us or you ain't. You're sitting over there talking out of both sides of your mouth."

Gregory stands up and waves in front of himself. "I – I think I've made my position very clear. And I want to thank all of you for _not_ being here today, and _not_ having this meeting with me, or – or being seen on your way out. In other words, go out the back."

We leave.

"Walking ballsack," Rosita says.

"Wanna knock that idiot's teeth out," Sasha, too.

Oliver's shaking his head and gritting his teeth, muttering, " _Stronzo peloso,_ " under his breath. I pat his hand to be some kind of comfort, even though I can feel steam pouring out of my own ears.

"Yeah, well, we don't need him anyway," Daryl says. We're out in the foyer now.

"Yeah, that's right," Dad says, "'cause we have Maggie and Sasha and Jesus here."

The front door opens.

"And Enid."

"Hey, um..." She looks nervous. Bean bristles under her feet.

"What's wrong?" Sasha asks her.

"Nothing. Just..." She laughs softly. "Come outside." We do. Several Hilltop people are standing before the building waiting for us.

"What's going on?" Maggie asks them.

"Hey." This woman has short dark-brown hair and dark skin. She steps forward. "So, if you don't remember, I'm Bertie. And I owe my life to y'all, twice over. A bunch of us do. Enid says that you want Gregory to get us to fight the Saviors with you. Is that true?"

"Yes."

"Do you think we can win, that we really could beat them? Us?"

Maggie nods. "I do."

Bertie sighs. "Well, Enid says you could show us the way. I'm ready."

A man behind her says, "Me too."

"Yeah."  
"Let's do this."  
"Let's do it."  
"I'm in."

At the same time, Oliver and I look at Enid. She looks at us, too. We're smirking. She shrugs _–the shrug–_ and also blushes so she turns away again. Oliver still walks across the porch and slings his arm over her shoulder.

We all head down towards the gate.

Michonne is saying, "It's a start."

And Sasha says, "We'll get more. It still won't be enough."

And Rosita says back, "No, it won't."

And Daryl tells us, "Well, we find the right stuff, then maybe we don't need the numbers. Blow 'em up, burn 'em to the ground."

"You said there weren't just soldiers with the Saviors," Tara says, "that there were workers there. People didn't have a choice."

"We gotta win," Daryl says. His face is still pretty swollen and bruised.

"We need more hands, another group," Dad says. "Negan has outposts. The geography, the distance works against us. We gotta get back. If they come looking for Daryl, we need to be there."

"You don't have to get back," Jesus says suddenly. "Not yet."

We turn to look at him. He pulls a walkie-talkie out of his pocket.

"It's one of theirs, long range. We can listen in, keep track of them."

"So, if we're not going back, what are we doing then?" Michonne asks.

Jesus says, "I think it's time we introduced you to Ezekiel. King Ezekiel."

Oliver shudders. We're holding hands, so I feel it and look at him. For a boy with olive skin, there's suddenly no colour in his face at all.

Dad asks, "King?"

Jesus nods. "Come with me. I'll explain."

"Hey," Enid whispers. She's under Oliver's other arm so she felt the shudder, too. He looks at her, then me, shudders again.

"Oliver," I say, "what's wrong?"

* * *

 **Notes**

Disclaimer: Carl saying, "I thought maybe you were coming out here to talk about us blah blah" was adapted from a thing Lori said to Rick back in season 2. Also, the old guy who founded the join up exercise is called Monty Roberts.

Next, Oliver's POV is back... and I guess things change from here on out?

As always,  
Happy reading.


	42. Rock in the Road, Part 1: Shit

**BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** same ._.

 **Hongo En** Oh yeah... shit's about to go down.

 **The Sorrowful Deity** He's a selective fuck-giver. He's got selective fuckism.

 **RHatch89** (✿◠‿◠)

 **Dampish Poet** Yes! Swear! Never again! (◣_◢) hehe...

 **The Flash Fanatic** :3

 **Andythebae** hello ilysm

* * *

I'm going to be telling the story in first-person past-tense from now on, I think. Hope you enjoy~

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

If everybody in the world kept a song inside their soul, then mine would've been absolute silence. I mean, it wasn't like this was news to me. I'd known it forever, really. It's just—it'd never screwed me over this badly before. Not so badly as it did while we rolled up at the outskirts of the Kingdom's realm, and I felt my stomach fall out of my asshole.

 _Shit. Oh, shit._ Secrets sucked.  
Secrets sucked so hard.

"Carl," I said. "Carl, I gotta tell you something."

He looked at me.

"Shit," I said—apparently I'd moved on from only thinking it. We'd been travelling all afternoon, and I'd had all that time and more to tell them, to tell _someone_ , but I kept my mouth shut. My talent.

 ** _Oliver the mute._**

 ** _Oliver the quiet one._**

 ** _Oliver trapped inside his own brain._**

"Oh, _shit..._ "

Outside the van, Rick and Jesus were talking.

"It's called _"the Kingdom"_?"

"I didn't name it."

"How much farther?"

"Well, technically, we're already here," Jesus told him. "I mean, we're always here, but here we are – at the Kingdom. Well, its outer edge." This made sense to me, but by the look on everyone else's face, it was riddles.

"Oliver?"

I startled, and then I began throwing my words out like hot rocks: "Carl, this isn't going to make sense for a while. But I swear, I'll explain. And you can hate me if you have to, I swear that, too. Please don't hate me forever though. God, just please—"

"Oliver, I can't hear you when you put your hand over your mouth."

Carl pulled it down. I said, "Shit," and he laughed—only the laugh caught inside his throat because I wasn't trying to be funny and I think he was only just starting to realise that.

"Oliver, come on. What?"

Restless, Daryl leaned his chest out of the door. "Hey, what the hell we waitin' on?"

Jesus said something, and in the same few moments several different things happened at once. One of them was Michonne asking me what was going on, and another thing was me hopping on one foot only it was difficult and awkward because I was also sitting behind the driver's seat. And I kept cursing. Or I kept saying okay—I don't remember which. From the seat behind, Tara was putting her hands on my shoulders to keep me still, and she called me dude and told me to calm down. She told me to explain. So I did. I said, "I know this place." And someone else said, "You _'know this place'_?" and they sounded confused as hell. So I said, "Yeah, a lot." And then the last thing that happened, the thing that caught everybody's attention the most, was the yelling. . .

"Who _dares_ to trespass on the sovereign land of the—oh, _shit._ "

It was Alvaro— _sonofabitch._

"Jesus, is that you?" he asked. He put his sword down and halted across the courtyard from the van. He was with Richard, and they were both on horse-back. They hadn't seen me.

"Who are all these people, Paul?"

"Hi, Richard. Nice to see you."

"It's good to see you, too."

Michonne was out of the van.

Richard nodded to her, then spoke to Jesus. "Your friends, who are they?"

"This is Rick Grimes. He's the leader of a like-minded community. These are some of his people. We would like to request an audience with King Ezekiel."

Richard looked at the van. I turned my head. He dismounted and told us to get out— _s _hit—__ _so_ we did: Carl, Tara, Rosita, Sasha and me. Richard was going to speak to Jesus again, but the word, "God," came out instead. Jesus gave him a funny look but Richard didn't notice. . . "Oliver?"

I put my hand up to wave. "Hi... Richard."

"Oliver. Oh my God."

I stepped forward. Didn't say anything. Definitely didn't expect it when Richard came right up and hugged me either. He held me, then he let me go.

"Christ, you're... You're here. You're alive!" He looked so relieved. I thought he might cry. I'd never seen him cry. Then I thought he might laugh. But I'd never seen him do that, either. He just sort of yelled at me without really yelling at me. "Dammit, kid, you really pulled a fast one on us this time."

"I left a note," I said.

"The King's been so worried. He sent us out on a search party yesterday. We just left again today to – thank Jesus we found you."

"You're welcome..."

Richard shot Jesus a look. Jesus shot me a look. And so did— _shit—_ I looked at Richard because his was the only face around that looked like it might not _actually_ have shot me. "He sent a search party?" I asked him—this really was news to me, that the King would go so far. For me. _Oliver._ Oliver, rotter of pomegranates. Okay, _wow,_ sure.

Richard didn't seem to hear my question. "Hey, where's your horse?" he asked me.

"Roan's fine. He's back h—"

"Excuse me."

Rick said that.

I turned to him, to all of them.

They  
were  
 _all_  
staring.

I cursed inside my chest, kept it there, swallowed it down. I looked at Carl and he looked like he did that time we met Ron and the others for the first time. _Lost._

"How do you know these people?" Michonne was the first to ask. Richard, too, looked at me like he was asking me the same question. Turned out, I had the same answer for both of them.

"They saved me."

Rick was shaking his head, like there were too many questions inside it and he needed to sort them through. In the end, he seemed to choose nothing. Maybe it wasn't the time. Maybe he knew enough already. Maybe he was disappointed in me. . . Maybe he was furious.

My mouth was sandpaper.

Richard cleared his throat and turned to Jesus again. "You say they're a like-minded community. Like-minded how?"

"We live, we trade, we fight the dead. Sometimes others."

They looked at each other.

"Line up." Richard didn't say it to me but I did anyway. Daryl didn't like it. He glared at me like he wanted me to talk to them. I didn't. He almost walked away, but Richard said, "The King is a busy man. And it's a dangerous world. We don't usually allow a pack of strangers to waltz through our door, even if they were brought by friends."

"We want to make the world _less_ dangerous," Michonne said, pushing through the cringe-wall I was building. "And we are all here to show – the King, how serious we are about that."

"The car stays outside," Richard said. "You gotta hand over your guns."

"We only have three."

Rick handed over his. Carl did, too, but was a little more reluctant. I wasn't. Richard was going to tell me to hold onto mine, but I pushed it into his hands and stepped away. Carl gave me a look. I knew what he was thinking. No. No, I had no idea what he was thinking. He was putting up a brick wall between us. I couldn't get through for anything.

 _Shit._

"Okay," Richard told us. "Follow me."

We did. Carl's thoughts were turning the air dark and stale and stiff. Mine were too. We listened to Jesus and Richard speak as something to distract us.

"Before we go in, Jesus, you have a brain and a backbone, so I'm talking to you, not Gregory. Whatever you're trying to start here, another protection pact, a trade, none of it matters if we don't start dealing with the real problem – the Saviors."

"You know, Richard, I've never seen you smile. I think that's gonna change today."

* * *

My head was down and my mouth was sealed shut. I guess the good thing about it all was that everybody seemed to really like the Kingdom.

"They have the numbers," Michonne said.

"But can they fight?" Rosita asked.

"Oh, they can fight," Jesus answered.

Daryl, still, wasn't so sure. "Maybe..."

Just then, a group of track boys ran past. I did track a lot. Stuck with Joey mostly. Together, we'd have to jog around the whole community four times; which was around six or seven miles. Joey hated it. Sometimes we'd wait until we were in the fields to bunk out, climb up a tree and hide until the team were on the last lap, and then we'd jump down after them and keep going.

This, of course, _before_ we started screwing.

"What is it with you and track?" I asked Joey one time, both of us hidden inside a big oak tree. It'd been raining for a while, and we were both drenched and freezing.

"It's not track." His teeth were chattering. "It's the laps. We do four laps. Always four. Four is bad, means death."

I laughed. "Where the fuck did you hear that?"

"It's this superstition."

"Chinese?"

"Chinese," he affirmed. I looked at him and rolled my eyes.

"Four's a good number," I said.

"No, it is not," he said.

"You're ridiculous," I said.

"And you are delusional," he said back. I rung out my fringe and flicked the rain-water at his face, and he swore at me in Mandarin. I just rolled my eyes again. We argued a lot, me and Joey. Joey always won. He was better at debating, more diplomatic—or at least I was always the one who gave up first. I guess I just wasn't stubborn enough. I mean, I liked to fight, but with fists, not words.

I was thinking about all this because Joey was among them, the track boys. He glanced over at us, since a big group of strangers wasn't exactly inconspicuous, but he got pushed to keep going by another track-mate, Jordy, before he recognised me.

I managed to go on for a little longer before—

"Oliver!"

It was weird. I felt like a balloon getting deflated, except I wasn't sure it felt too bad. Still, my face folded up, and I said, "Shit," one last time before Morayo Dimka collided with the back of my chest. I staggered into Carl and Sasha, and then I got spun around and shaken by the shoulders.

"Dude! You!" Sometimes, when Ray was excited, I imagined his dreadlocks were alive, wagging like dog tails. " _Bro!_ "

"Ray," I said.

Leviathan was there then, crashing into me at full _Thor_ strength. Lani followed him. Her curly caramel hair flew all over the place—I got tangled up in it. The three of them knocked me off my feet and buried me inside their hugs. Leviathan was so happy he almost picked me up and threw me over his shoulder—no, he _did_.

" _Agh,_ shit. _Lev!_ "

I was laughing my ass off. Couldn't even help it. I was so happy to see them. I didn't think I would be. In all that time sitting in that van I'd forgotten to think about how much I missed everyone. I missed them. I missed them so much.

I was put on the ground again. Lani's little brother, Juni, was standing off to the side. He was staring at me like I was a sound that he could actually hear. But since Juni Hale is deaf, I signed _hello_ to him and he signed something I didn't understand back, so he did it again, easier for me to get: _hello, friend_. I grinned. And he did up his shoelace. And this was when his sister punched me in the chest.

"Ack! _Lani!_ "

"We thought you were _dead._ "

"No," I said, like it was a silly thing to think. She looked like she might punch me again, so I moved on. "Didn't anybody get my note?" She grabbed my face and kissed my cheek instead of answering me. I grunted.

 _Shit._  
The word was just an inner broken record now.  
 _Shit, shit, shit._

But I was so glad to see them. I was. I _really_ was. I hugged them all back and got kisses and more hugs and punches, and for a second I was so happy I forgot the high pile of shit I was buried inside of, until I turned and faced everyone.

Jesus was frowning. Tara was shaking her head. Sasha's eyebrow was cocked. Rosita looked like she still had no idea what was going on and that she was pissed as hell about it, as did Daryl and Rick and Michonne, all waiting for me to explain. And Carl? He looked—I didn't even have the word for how he looked.

"Neat bunch," Lani complimented them all. "Who are they?"

I was going to tell her. Tell all of them. Come right out with it because I really wanted them all to meet each other and like each other. And I was going to say I was sorry, that I never meant for this to get so big. But someone said, "Oliver..." from behind me and I turned around and saw—

"Morgan?" Tara said.

He was frowning, like he was worried he was asleep, _dreaming_. People were hugging him and his eyes kept locking onto me and I kept having to look down at my feet. He came over anyway, hugged me. The hug was heavy, and he whispered to me, "Why did you bring them here, boy?"

I shook my head and pulled away. "No, I... I—"

"Really could use some explanation here," Tara said.

Rick pointed at me. He'd never _pointed_ at me before. "Oliver. Explain. Now."

"I..."

"I'm sorry," Richard interjected. "Morgan, you know these people, too?"

"We go back to the start," Rick answered.

"Well," Richard said, "the King is ready to see you."

Lani, Leviathan and Ray were all watching us, standing back now with Juni. I didn't know what to say to them, so they just sort of walked away and tried not to look too thrown off kilter. The others were heading into the theatre. Morgan caught me as I went. He looked into my eyes and I shook my head this tiny little bit, and Morgan nodded, like he understood, so I followed the others inside while he talked privately with Daryl and Rick.

Inside the auditorium, everybody was standing in the doorway like they weren't being allowed in. I looked past over shoulders to see why. _Oh._

Shiva growled.

She was up on stage like the first time I ever saw her, with Ezekiel in his throne beside her and Jerry stood back to the side. Benjamin, too. Richard joined them.

Sasha looked at me. Rick, too. Nobody was talking. I think Carl was deleting me from his acknowledgement, temporarily. I kept trying to look at him. He knew it, too, because he'd grit his teeth so hard I was scared they'd crack.

Jesus walked down the middle row confidently.

" _Jesus!_ " Ezekiel cried. "It pleases me to see you, old friend."

An arm up, Jerry yelled, "It pleases him, indeed!"

" _Jerry,_ " Ezekiel frowned. The steward quietened, but his grin didn't go anywhere. "Tell me, Jesus, what news do you bring good King Ezekiel? Are these new allies you've brought me?"

"Indeed, they are, Your Majesty. This is – oh, right. I forgot to mention that—"

" _Er,_ tiger," Rick guessed.

We were all still huddled in the doorway.

Shiva roar sent a shock-wave through everyone except me. I wanted to laugh, but I was also hiding behind Daryl's shoulders, which is why Richard stepped across the stage and told Ezekiel that I was there. I cringed. _Dammit, Richard._ I rose up on my toes to peek through Daryl's hair—Ezekiel was stood up now, squinting to find me.

"Oliver?"

I do this thing—bunch up my shoulders when I'm freaked out, like around spiders or the smell of pork. When I put my shoulders down again, I lost a few inches in height. I sighed, stepped around Daryl, and waved.

"Dare I say," Ezekiel muttered, "is that you, young warrior?"

"Erm. Hey, King Ezekiel."

He cheered.

"Shit," I said, but luckily it was quiet enough he didn't hear me. I cleared my throat, stepped forward. "Uh, these people are my friends. My family."

Ezekiel was too distracted to pay them much attention. "Come," he said softly, like it'd been two years not two days. "Let me look at you."

I almost groaned. I wished he didn't have to do that, put on such a show, not with these guys. King Ezekiel was like an embarrassing parent—times _ten_. I noticed that Benjamin was fidgeting while I walked up to the stage. Even Shiva made this strange, _"Brewew,"_ noise at me. I thought I'd throw up, right there across the stage like that Romeo and Juliet play all over again. Me and stages didn't mix. Ezekiel put his hands on my shoulders and grinned. When he hugged me, I got a mouthful of his dreadlocks.

"I am glad you are well, Oliver," he said into my ear. "I thought you had followed in our fair maiden's footsteps, only gone for good, this time."

I shook my head and whispered, "Keep her secret." And Ezekiel gave me a strange look as he pulled away. He was going to say something, but then Benjamin, in all his surrogate brother vigour, marched across the stage and grabbed me.

" _Dammit,_ Apple."

He was crying. _Jeez._ Ben was really crying.

"God dammit, you asshole."

I frowned into his shoulder. I had this feeling like I wanted to cry, too, but I didn't. I didn't do anything. I didn't know _what_ to do. He sounded angry. I got why. _Shit._ I didn't know I was this important to them. I didn't know I would cause so much _sadscaredmad_ to happen inside so many people's heads. I hugged him back. _That's_ what I did. Hugged and hugged and hugged.

"Stand at your post, Benjamin."

He pulled away and apologised. He wiped his face. Ezekiel dismissed me. I didn't say anything while I stepped down from stage and joined the others. They were standing closer now, spread out between the seats. Rick and Michonne stood in the middle aisle behind Jesus. Daryl, Sasha, Tara and Rosita were on their right in separate rows. Morgan was ahead. And I stood by Carl. He didn't look at me.

"This is Rick Grimes," Jesus said when everybody else turned their attention back again, "the leader of Alexandria, and these are some of his people. Oliver included."

"Well, any friend of Oliver's is a friend of the King, however seldom he spoke of them. I welcome you all to the Kingdom, good travellers. Now, what brings you to our fair land? Why do you seek an audience with the King?"

"Ezekiel..."

Rick paused, looked at me, then looked away.

" _King_ Ezekiel," he corrected himself. "Alexandria, the Hilltop, and the Kingdom – all three of our communities have something in common. We all serve the Saviors. Alexandria already fought them once, and we won."

Ezekiel glanced at me. My boots were suddenly the most fascinating things in the universe to me; I looked at them so hard I had to push my glasses up my nose.

"We thought we took out the threat," Rick went on, "but we didn't know then what we know now. We only beat one outpost. We've been told you have a deal with them, that you know them. Then you know they rule through violence and _fear_."

Ezekiel looked furious.

"Your Majesty," Jesus said, "I only told them of the—"

"Our deal with the Saviors is not known among my people, for good cause," Ezekiel said sternly. "We made you a party to that secret when you told us of the Hilltop's own travails, but we did not expect you to share—"

"We can help each other," Jesus tried.

" _Don't_ interrupt the King," Jerry threatens.

Ezekiel's eyes fell on me again. "And you, Oliver." He said it quietly, like he was hurt. "You made an oath to protect the Kingdom." My breath was shaking. Ezekiel didn't even blink. "What say you for breaking it?"

I was going to yack. Fuck. I was going to yack all over the Goddamn place.

"Oliver has done no such thing, Your Majesty," Jesus said. "This was all my doing. _I_ told them of the Kingdom this morning. Just me."

Ezekiel seemed to calm down, but only a little. He told Jesus, "We brought you into our confidence. Why did you break it?"

"Because I want you to hear Rick's plans."

"And what plans have you, Rick Grimes of Alexandria?"

"We came to ask the Kingdom – to ask you, to join us in fighting the Saviors, fighting for freedom for all of us."

Ezekiel ran a hand between Shiva's ears. She was looking at me. I felt her _purr_ inside of my chest. "What you are asking is very serious," the King said.

Michonne stepped forward. "Several of our people – _good people_ – were killed by the Saviors, brutally."

"Who?" Morgan asked.

We were all quiet.

"Abraham," Rosita said through her teeth. "Glenn. Spencer, Olivia. Eugene was taken. They took Daryl. He escaped. Every second he's out here, he's a _target_." She crossed her arms. " _You gonna say you were right?_ "

"No." Rosita wasn't furious at him, she was just furious, and I guess Morgan just kind of knew that. "I'm – I'm just real sorry they're gone."

"Negan murdered Glenn and Abraham," Rick said, "beat them to death." I hated hearing it again. I hated hearing it at all. The whole _room_ hated hearing it. But I figured that was good. I figured all that hate was what was going to bring us all together.

"Terrorized the Hilltop," Sasha added, all pent up with hate too. "Set loose walkers just to make a _point_."

"I used to think the deal was something we could live with," Jesus said. "A lot of us did. But that's changing. So let's change the world, Your Majesty."

"I want to be honest about what we're asking," Rick said. "My people are strong, but there's not enough of us. We don't have guns – not enough, at least. Not a lot of weapons, period."

"We have people," Richard spoke in. "And weapons. If we strike first, together, we can beat them. Your Majesty, no more waiting for things to get worse beyond what we can handle. We set things right. The time is now."

"Morgan, what say you?" Ezekiel asked.

"Me?"

" _Speak..._ "

He didn't want to, but he did. "People will die," he said. "A lot of people, and not just the Saviors. It... If we can find another way, we have to."

Rick was shaking his head.

"Maybe it's just about Negan," Morgan bargained, "just capturing him, holding him. Maybe... I—"

Ezekiel seemed like he'd expected as much from him. "The hour grows late," he said, standing up. Shiva growled. "Rick Grimes of Alexandria, you have given the King much to ponder."

Rick tried one more time. He told a story his mother told him. About this road to a kingdom. "There was a rock in the road. And people would just avoid it, but horses would break their legs on it and die, wagon wheels would come off. People would lose the goods they'd be coming to sell.

That's what happened to a little girl.

The cask of beer her family brewed fell right off. It broke. Dirt soaked it all up and it was gone. That was her family's last chance. They were hungry. They didn't have any money. She just sat there and _cried_ , but she wondered why it was still there for it to hurt someone else. So she dug at that rock in the road with her hands till they _bled_ , used everything she had to pull it out. It took hours. And then when she was gonna fill it up, she saw something in it.

It was a bag of gold."

The room was quiet.

" _Alright,_ " Jerry cheered under his breath.

This was when Carl whispered something to me.

"He's the steward, in the story you told me."

 _The story,_ I thought. _Shit. The story._ I knew he wasn't asking a question but I nodded anyway.

Carl dipped his head.

"And... is that—" He glanced up at Ben. "—the faun?"

I shook my head.

"But they're around," Carl whispered.

Nod.

"And the ghost?"

Another nod.

"The others?"

"You can hate me," I said.

Carl was quiet for a second. "It's just... It's a lot to swallow right now."

Rick was talking. "The king'd put that rock in the road because he knew the person who dug it out, who did something, they deserved a reward. They deserved to have their life changed for the good. Forever."

Very carefully, Ezekiel looked at us all. Finally, his eyes fell on me and this time I didn't look away from him. He said, "I invite you all to sup with us and stay 'till the morrow."

"We need to get back home," Rick said. Ezekiel looked at him, then back at me. His eyes were wild. The thing about Ezekiel was that he looked the most frightening when he was afraid.

"I shall deliver my decree in the morn," he finalised. He clapped his staff to the stage floor, and as we left the theatre, Shiva's growl echoed inside my skeleton.

* * *

 **Notes**

:3 tell me what you think

As always,  
Happy reading (.


	43. Rock in the Road, Part 2: Fucked Up

**DampishPoet** T.T

 **RHatch89** thank you x

 **The Sorrowful Deity** Yes, must be xD

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** :3 oops...

 _Personal note: so... kissing's pretty dope, huh?_

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

I talked to Morgan. He said he didn't tell Daryl or Rick about Carol, just that she was here, that we looked after her, and that now she's gone. It was a relief. One secret down—sort of. Still, it was something.

Everybody was still a little uneasy with me, but at least they knew part of why I didn't tell them anything; the oath, and also just this strange and devastating predicament about being a boy with dead parents _and_ an adopted mom who abandoned him. Yeah. Guess there was a lot to feel sorry for me about. I hated it. _I hated it._ But Carol's secret was safe. That's all I cared about. And Ezekiel wasn't going to tell them about her either. He knew they'd go looking and that she'd take off again when she found out—and she _would_ find out. Ezekiel knew she didn't want to be part of the fight too, part of the _anything._

Me? I was over it. I was. Or... I would be, soon.

Supper sucked.

I knew Joey saw me across the mess-hall. I knew I should've gone over and talked to him. I mean, the guy thought I was dead for the last few days, or had ran away at least. And he _was_ my friend. The least I could do was tell him I was sorry.

 _God._ I was so stupid.

It happened while I was getting done waiting in line for cobbler. I was trying to keep a low profile, head-down, mouth shut. I was good at that, or I _thought_ I was. . . because that was when Joey Song got up from his seat, marched across the mess-hall, and punched me across the face.

 _Man._

I made no noise. I just felt my head snap back, and my tray as it was flung from my hand. Broccoli and pheasant and lemonade went flying. And I hit the floor hard. _I'm blind,_ was one of the million first thoughts I had. _Fuck, I'm blind._ Except— _Oh, no, it's just cobbler on my glasses._

Joey looked so tall. He was a tower glaring down at me. Blocked the sun. I groaned, " _Oghhhg,_ " and clutched my nose, then stood, unsteady. "Okay, okay. Shit. I totally deserved tha—"

He punched me again.

This time, before I fell, Joey grabbed my hair and dragged me across a bench. My elbow came back, catching him in the chest. I wanted him to back off, so I could talk, so I could fucking _stand_ , but I wasn't fast enough to collect my legs again. I was pushed back against the condiment stand. My hand was in his shirt and his whole forearm was crushed against my collar. I struggled. Joey tried to hit me again but I dodged the brunt of it and wriggled free of him, and then I got shoved and pushed and I shoved and pushed back.

"Cease this!" I heard.

I took another punch across the back of my head. Joey was going crazy on me. Somehow I was rolled over onto my side. Took a kick to the stomach. And then I was grabbed and dragged and Joey held me down and sat on my chest. Punch. Punch. _Punch._ He stopped when he was too exhausted, bent over me and heaving.

People were running over, yelling, and Joey wasn't saying anything. _He wasn't saying anything._ Joey stared and stared and stared and I knew exactly what he was about to do. I think I knew what he was about to do before _he_ knew what he was about to do. He was about to kiss me. And I knew I wasn't going to kiss him back. And I knew he thought maybe I would, so I said, "I'm sorry," and I meant it so much that Joey was startled for a second, so I shoved him off of me.

Joey collapsed onto his back next to me, like he'd given up. I wiped blood from under my nose and coughed into the inside of my elbow.

"Guess you like fighting too now, right?" I asked breathlessly.

Joey just shook his head. He was crying. And he had this look on his face like I was the worst person in the world and I was. "No," he answered, "I just don't like assholes."

Yeah. _Ouch..._

" _HEY!_ " Rick roared. The fight had only lasted a few seconds, so he and the others had only just gotten across the mess-hall. There was a crowd though. Joey staggered to his feet. He looked terrified, but he didn't run away.

"What the hell, kid?!" Tara yelled.

"Oliver—Carl, wait."

Even though Joey wasn't trying to kick my ass anymore, the look he was giving me was so powerful he could've started an inferno. He looked at Carl, then me again. _I'm sorry._ I wanted to scream it. I wanted the whole building to tumble down with how much I meant it.

"Step back!" Daryl growled.

Michonne stood between us, me and Joey, her fists clenched.

"Here," Carl said to me, grabbing under my arm to help me up. Joey was panting, pacing. Michonne was pacing with him. He knew. God, he knew. Joey looked at me like he was going to grab me again, and he was about to get knocked back for it, too, but I stopped them.

"Wait," I grunted out. "It—it's okay. _Wait_."

I leaned into my knees to steady myself. My cheek stung. My brain was powder. Joey was gripping his hair; black floppy tufts sticking out between his fingers. But he looked like he'd been snapped back inside his head again, at least. But maybe that was because his uncle was there then, yelling at him and grabbing him by the collar. Joey shook him off, and then, without saying anything, he grabbed his Thermos flask—which he'd dropped, and walked back to his seat. He didn't even flinch at the glares he got. Not even from Daryl. Joey was so angry it was like he wasn't even pretending to be tough anymore.

 ** _You really screwed him up..._**

Huan apologised to us, then went and joined him. I wiped my eyes. My nose. My whole face. I felt like a fraud. I felt like a liar. I knew I wasn't by technicality but I still felt like it. I'd still caused _all_ of this. I was too quiet. I kept in too many words. That's how words worked though. They cut deep if you used them wrong, but you'd end up losing limbs if you didn't use them at all.

Carl was watching me. He looked shaken up and frustrated and out of breath. I didn't know why he was out of breath. _I_ was out of breath. But I guess we did that, sometimes—felt each other's feelings. I guess that happened. I wondered if he could feel the throbbing in my cheek. I wondered if he felt as guilty as I did. I wished to God he didn't. That was mine. I didn't want to share that. It was my guilt and mine alone and he didn't deserve it like I did.

"Who is that?" he asked me.

I just looked at him. "The faun."

Carl looked at Joey. He was sitting in silence now, staring at his tray alone as his uncle spoke privately to the King. Carl looked at me again. He gritted his teeth. Rick looked like he was tired of this, all my surprises. He asked if I was good and I nodded even though the word _good_ wasn't exactly the one I would've used.

"Please, my people," Ezekiel said, raising his arms, "continue your meal in peace. Rick, see to it that you and your people be seated again."

Rick grimaced, nodded, and then he and the others went and sat down again without talking. They shook their heads a lot. Ezekiel was staring at me. His eyes were big and scary again, but he too walked away without saying anything to me.

I was stuck in limbo between Rick and Ezekiel, neither a part _of_ them or apart _from_ them.

Across the room, Ezekiel was talking with Joey. He took his shoulder but Joey pushed him off. And then Ezekiel asked him something and Joey nodded, so Ezekiel took his shoulder again and this time Joey let him, and then they got up, and together, left the cafeteria. Other Kingdom people were staring and whispering, not just at them but me, too. I picked up as much of what I'd dropped as I could. I had everything, but when I tried to pick the tray up off the floor, I couldn't with one hand and instead dropped everything on accident again.

Lani offered to help me. I told her no. Ray and Leviathan, too. No. _No, no, no._

They helped me anyway.

"Why did he do that?"

"Doesn't matter."

"What's going on, Oliver?"

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing."

"You were gone, bro."

I wanted to say I was sorry. I was so so sorry. It was crazy that no matter how much I wanted to say it, I'd hardly said it at all that day. I thought I would, really. . . but I just yelled at them. "Look, just let it go!"

They stared at me.

" _'Let it go'_?" Leviathan asked. His green eyes looked all deep and mad and like they would strike at any second.

"Nothing," I said again. _I am an asshole._

"You're not making any sense," Lani said. She looked a little scared. I was breathing too hard. I couldn't pick the tray up from the floor with one hand and it was making me angry. I wanted to kick it. I wanted to crush it into dust.

"Hey, it's cool, man," Ray smiled, grabbing it for me. He looked at the others like he was telling them to stop talking for a second in his head. They did. I felt like a child. Ray smiled at me again. "Wrong place wrong time, man. Joey ain't gotta be like that."

"He did," I said. I hated the way my voice sounded, all hiccups and harsh breaths.

"No, man," Leviathan said, "fag's got issues."

Ray looked at him. Lani looked at him, too, then me. I'd grown ten feet. I think someone murmured my name, but I was so angry. _So angry._ The whole day blew up in my head and it came out through my hands.

I shoved Leviathan to the floor.

" _Agh!_ "

"What the hell?!"

"Dude!"

"Why don't you shut the hell up, okay, Leviathan?" I yelled at him. And I was crying. Leviathan had never seen me cry. Lani or Ray either. I think it scared them. Ms. Hale, sat at the bench with Juni, looked like she was going to say something to me, but then Leviathan's mom, Dianne, started yelling at me and I started yelling back, and then Rick was there.

He grabbed my collar and yanked me outside.

Michonne, Carl and Morgan came out, too.

Carl looked furious. Michonne told me to tell her what was going on, but I said nothing. Morgan said he knew, and he asked me, "Do you want me to explain everything for you?" but I didn't speak to him. I didn't even look at him. I stood by the window and peeked into the cafeteria and saw Leviathan and Lani and they were mumbling and Ray was trashing my tray for me. I didn't know what they were thinking but I knew it wasn't anything good. I know they were starting to realise that they didn't really know anything about me. I think I realised something, too. I realised I was scared. I realised that I never really made any friends at the Kingdome in the first place. I kept them all too far away. I let all the mean in the world make me mean, too.

Morgan was still waiting for my answer. The others were waiting, too, trying to be patient, trying to see through all the questions, and when I couldn't stand my own silence any longer, I shrugged off Rick's hand and said, "Say whatever the fuck you want, Morgan." And then I walked away.

* * *

A few hours later, it was dark.

Once Ezekiel was done talking to Joey, he found me and took me to the doctor. I only had bruises, so I was just told to hold a bag of frozen peas to my cheek for a few hours, but it turned out Ezekiel really brought me because he was still expecting me to take the prosthetic. I said I didn't need it, and he asked me if I would like it anyway. "It was a gift for you, after all." I wanted to throw it through his jaw. I wanted to ask him why he was being so nice, why he _was_ so nice. I couldn't stand it. But instead of all that I just nodded like a rotten _stronzo_.

My prosthetic was uncomfortable and I had red marks on my left armpit and right shoulder-blade after only minutes. I kept getting the hook stuck on things, like door hinges and clothes. But, God, I loved it.

While the doctor took me through a few exercises, Ezekiel talked to me about the fight, and even if I didn't start it, I still told him I deserved it. It was true. I kept it all vague. I didn't tell them that Joey liked me, or that I'd led him on or broken his heart, and as far as I could tell Joey didn't tell them any of that either. Still, as consequence we weren't allowed to be around each other. Which was fine by me—which also wasn't. I was told to stay in my bedroom so that's where I had been all evening. Grounded.

My room wasn't like it was in Alexandria, but it was enough while I was there. I didn't have any comics, and I didn't collect a lot of books or flannel shirts either, but music—I had a whole shelving unit. There was T. Rex and Mozart. Arctic Monkeys and the Killers. Pink Floyd, Kings of Leon, Noah and the Whale, Elvis Presley. Currently, David Bowie was playing. . . but even _Heroes_ couldn't save me on that night.

Me and Carl were fighting.

"You lied to me!"

"I didn't lie!"

" _Fine._ You didn't lie. You just _'didn't tell me'_ right? Like story time?"

"Yes."

" _Dammit,_ Oliver. That's not fair. That's _not_ fair!"

"I never meant for it to get so out of control. I know I was stupid, okay?"

"Yeah, you were." He was pacing. "God, this is what you were doing? All this time. Nothing but moping around, not doing a damn thing except crying over missing the prom."

"What – what the hell are you talking about? I've been working my fucking ass off."

Carl just looked at me. "Screwing around? Eating cobbler? Drinking and getting high?"

"That wasn't all of it! I was protecting this place. I was protecting..." I stopped to breathe and rephrase. "Look, I made a mistake. I made _a lot_ of mistakes. I _told_ you that—"

"You told me a fairy-tale," Carl answered. "Like I'm some kid. Some _baby._ Screw you. Screw you, Oliver. You ran away. All you do is run away! I got off my ass. I went out by myself. I killed two of Negan's men! So screw you! Screw you for making me do that alone!"

I was falling over words like falling down stairs. Broke my neck. Ruptured a spleen. He was blaming me for all this stuff, stuff I did but I didn't mean to do, and all that _mean_ was building up in me like a volcano, so I did it back. . .

"You got Olivia and Spencer killed!"

. . .and that was where I fucked up.

That was where I fucked up _bad_.

"I – I'm sorry," I said immediately. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. That wasn't true."

Carl didn't say anything. He was staring at me. Muse was in his hands and I got this feeling like its time on this planet would be over soon. He looked at the wall. I waited for him to throw at it. He didn't. He set the CD on my dresser and put his hands on his knees.

"I can go for a while," I said, backing to the door. My hand and prosthetic were up, like he was a bomb about to go off. "I – I can let you have space to—"

"No." He looked at me, so mad I flinched. Carl's eyes were on fire. "No, we're getting out of here. You're going to introduce me to your friends. And we're all going to hang out and have a good time, like normal kids."

"Are – are you sure?"

"No," Carl answered, "I think I hate you right now."

"Okay. That's okay."

"And I think if I sit in here alone for too long I'm going to trash all of your shit again."

"Okay. You can do that, too, if you have to."

"Stop talking."

I did.

"Alright, come with me," Carl griped, grabbing my hand, "and be quiet."

* * *

Together we made two Oliver-and-Carl-shaped bumps under my sheets with my spare clothes. I left my prosthetic. I wasn't going to sleep with it on, obviously, so leaving it looked more believable to anybody who might've decided to check in on us. The note I'd left on my bedside two days before was gone. Someone must have taken it and—I don't know, not shared it around. But I didn't know why someone would do that. I guess I was good at not thinking about it. Or rather, I guess I was a little distracted. To be honest, Carl was scaring me. He didn't say a word while we snuck over to Ben's place. If our thoughts were turning the air dark and stale before, then now we were hearing _Boss_ music, or at least _I_ was.

I knocked on the door and Ben answered. He was wearing pyjamas. His hair was messy too, like he'd just woken up rather than was just _about_ to go to bed. "Apple," he said, " _dude..._ "

"Hey. Sorry, I know it's late."

"It's so late."

"You weren't at supper."

"I wasn't at supper." He looked at Carl, rubbed his eyes, and pointed. "Hey. You're, uh..."

"Carl," I introduced them, "my boyfriend." I looked at him to check he was still okay with this title. He looked like he was, but still didn't speak. "Carl," I said, "this is Benjamin, my friend." Like I had with Carl, I looked at Ben to check he was still okay with this title.

Benjamin was blinking. He looked at Carl, then me, then shook his head a little and looked at me again. He frowned and concentrated for a few seconds. I never really came out to him. I made jokes but I guess Ben never figured it out. He figured it out then though. I laughed. Ben blew his cheeks out and laughed too—it felt good that it wasn't at us.

"Nice to meet you, Carl."

Carl smiled. I started to wonder if Carl wasn't so much being quiet to torture me but more because he was just awkward. I understood awkward—knew it like the back of my hand, so I moved on quickly. "Do you wanna hang out with us?" I asked Ben.

"Now?"

"Yeah."

"Thought you were on house arrest."

"You heard about that."

"Yep." He rubbed his face. "Can we do this tomorrow? I keep forgetting my cookie dough." Carl made a face. I tried not to laugh. Ben liked cookie dough. A lot. Whenever he got his hands on it, he ate it raw.

"Can't," I said, "we're leaving tomorrow."

"Leaving?"

"Yeah, man. Back home. We live in another community."

"But you just got here."

I sort of just shrugged. I was good at acting like I wasn't miserable. But Ben still looked at me like he knew. Only then he squinted, and I noticed how funny he smelled.

"Are you high?"

Ben held up his hand and pinched his finger and thumb together. "Little."

"Got anymore?" I asked.

"You want some?" he asked.

I looked at Carl. Carl looked at me. I looked at Benjamin again. "Maybe later," I said. "Hey, go get your cookie dough and come with us."

Ben nodded his head and smiled at us. I saw the way Carl looked at Ben's smile, like he believed it. That was Benjamin's magic. I was glad it worked on Carl too.

Ben disappeared inside for a few minutes. Carl and I waited in quiet. He kept giving me weird looks and I gave them back. Eventually Ben returned with jeans on instead of flannel pants and a sweater. I sighed. "Ben..."

"Apple."

"You forgot your cookie dough."

Ben sighed at the stars. "Be right back."

He left again.

Carl looked at me. "Apple?"

"I'm a tooth-magnet," I said.

"You're a shit," Carl said.

"That too," I said.

He punched my arm—not too hard, but not too gentle either. Ben came out with his dough and a small tin and glass piece that he stowed in his pocket. I noticed Carl look at it.

"Come on," Ben said, "let's go find the others. I think it's time for a going-away party."

* * *

 **Notes**

Carl is fuckin' pissed.

So am I. I just saw the lastest episode and I'm still fucking Rekt.

As always,  
Happy reading (. 


	44. Rock in the Road, Part 3: Heavy

**RHatch89** thank you.

 **DampishPoet** eeee, thank you.

 **Hongo En** xD they appreciate it

 **BloodGutsandChocolatePudding** :,)

 **Reoru** thank you so much your review was beautiful thank you!

 **The Sorrowful Deity** hehe...

 **MariaGuest** ooooh, thank you. And yeah, I consider chapter 10 to 43 the "Dark Ages" of Stale M&M's. The Golden Era was definitely after the hospital to Oliver losing his hand. I loved writing those chapters. And yes, it's hard to get a balance. I don't want everything to be just about them so adding interactions with other characters and ocs satisfies me a little more, so I don't see that changing anytime soon. But from here on our Oliver and Carl will be getting back to their old selves together, but in a new way I guess, because they've both grown a lot since then. I'm excited for you to read. Thank you so much for the support.

 _Personal note: Seriously though, why did nobody tell me kissing was actually this much fun? WtF. I worry my body will eject itself from itself, like being high, only I can hold onto thoughts better... even if those thoughts are maddening._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

The party wasn't really a party, luckily. It was pretty much a late and private movie night. It was fun. I had fun. Lani came along, and I asked Leviathan and Ray, who were both at Ray's, but they said, "Maybe later." I felt like 'maybe later' meant 'we're not friends anymore'. I didn't like feeling like that. And I guess Lani could tell because she explained to me later that they were still upset after what happened at supper, but that they were mostly just confused. "They have questions."

"Do you?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said. "But I won't ask them."

I really loved Lani for that.

Carl was sitting next to me, and Ben was sitting next to him. Lani was kneeling on my other side, re-doing the braids in my fringe. Two weeks ago Juni wanted braids in his hair, but he was worried he'd get bullied again like he was for the dress, so I let him put braids in my hair too, and I ended up liking them so much that he or Lani did them on me all the time.

The movie we were watching was _A Hard Day's Night_.

I loved the Beetles. I loved them so much that while I watched John Lennon ask a grumpy train passenger for a kiss, I only just noticed the smell in the room. I was still laughing while I looked over and watched Carl smoke from Benjamin's bong.

" _Seriously?_ "

Carl ignored me. He smoked. He put out the lighter.

He held his breath and winced. I must've looked anxious because Ben, who was digging into his cookie dough, told me, "He said he wanted some."

I pretended I didn't care. I pretended this didn't bother me. Even though it did—I don't know. I guess it's because I was afraid Carl might've done what I did; made all the mistakes I made. _But he won't,_ I decided. _I'll look after him._

Carl didn't cough.

When he let out his breath, there was no smoke. It was all lost inside his lungs. I already knew it was hard to do that, especially for someone who'd never smoked before in his life.

"Jesus _Rovia_ ," I said.

Ben laughed.

"It's no big, right?" Carl asked me. He was talking from his throat—right from the back. I rolled my eyes. He thought he was being cool. And I hated the fact that he kind of _was_. Not exactly from smoking pot but more just because he was being so laid back and nonchalant and mysterious. _The new boy._ Okay. Fine. I guess I was a little jealous—also, fine, a little into it too.

Carl licked his lips.

I bit my tongue.

He smoked some more and handed the piece and lighter back. This time, however, when he exhaled, smoke left him like dragons' breath. He coughed a few times, then a few hundred times more. I snorted.

Ben smoked and leaned across him to pass to me. I declined. Carl put his head back. He looked uncomfortable, a little, also annoyed, a little. . . also pale, a _lot_. I watched him while he sat very quietly for a few minutes. He smoked until he didn't want anymore, and then he was making these faces, like he was going to speak, but he didn't.

"Carl?" I said.

He nodded this tiny bit.

"You can talk," I said.

He nodded again.

"Sometimes it feels better to talk."

Carl unclenched his hands. They were trembling.

"So," I said, "uh, how do you feel, Carl?"

He  
did  
not  
look  
okay.

"Heart's fast," he whispered.

"Yeah, that happens sometimes."

"I don't know." I wasn't sure why he said that. He said it again. "I don't know."

Lani started smoking too. She was done on my hair. I gave her a sour look and she shrugged. I let it go. I wasn't sure she'd ever tried pot before so I guess I decided to leave her to it. I went back to watching Carl and the movie simultaneously. Carl. Movie. Carl. Carl. Movie. Carl. I mean, I knew I didn't need to worry. Jerry's stuff wasn't dangerous at all. So I went a few minutes or so without looking at him at all before he suddenly grabbed at my arm and pulled me across my beanbag.

"Easy, man!"

"I can't think," he said.

"Wait, wait, ow, not my amp. Here."

"You never... You never... You never said it felt like this." He was blinking a lot, breathing fast, sweating. "You never said it felt like this."

"Hey, hey, hey. Here. How do you feel, Carl?"

"I don't know." He sighed steeply and rolled over onto his back. He laughed. "Moments."

"Yeah."

"What if I die? What if _you_ die?"

"I won't die. You won't either."

Ben and Lani were laughing at him, sharing the dough. I gave them a look so they settled—well, Ben did. Lani couldn't stop laughing for anything but at least it wasn't at Carl now. He still groaned self-consciously. He made sure his bandage was sitting right.

"I got shot," he said, "Sorry. I got shot."

"You did," I said, "eight months ago. Don't say sorry."

"I have amnesia."

"You're better now."

"I'm not. I'm all gross. My face's all messed up."

"You're beautiful," I said. "Dude, you're so beautiful."

I hated how he didn't believe me. He didn't believe me so much that he didn't even acknowledge I'd said it. He just said, "I miss stuff."

"Don't."

He looked at me. "I do. I do. I do." I tried to shush him. I tried to hold his face and ease him back into his beanbag. He kept talking. "I miss everything, Oliver. I missed all _this_."

I knew he was going to give himself a panic attack if he didn't calm down, so I stood up and walked around him. Carl kept touching my legs, like they were a buoy and he was stranded in a deep ocean. When I sat down on his other side against the wall, he curled up on my lap and clung to my chest.

"Don't let go," he said. "Don't let go of me."

"Okay."

"Don't let me go."

"I won't. Promise. I won't let go, Carl—guys, shut up."

Carl buried his face in my chest and apologised.

"It's okay, man. You're just having an adrenaline rush," I explained. Explaining would always make me feel better. The first few times, if I got too paranoid, sometimes Jerry would sit and explain everything going on inside my head all while it was happening, even though I couldn't really take it in, but I could _feel_ it happening, so I felt better—I don't know, it was weird. But it worked. So I did the same for Carl; petting the top of his head while I spoke. "You're taking in a lot. You have been taking in a lot, all day, and now your heads taking it all out on you. And I'm sorry for that."

Carl gripped my shirt tighter.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. I meant it. I _really_ meant it. "You'll feel better soon. Just try to relax, Carl. You'll feel better once you relax."

Turns out I was right. After a little while, I asked Carl again how he felt and he just looked at me, put his mouth on my ear, and whispered, _"Gooooood."_ It tickled real bad so I pushed him to sit next to me.

We watched the movie.

Carl kept _oohhh_ ing and _aahhh_ ing and Lani kept laughing. Ben was very focussed on the movie. When Carl started getting hungry, Lani offered the canned corn she brought—for some reason she didn't get very hungry right away, but she did after a while. Carl had already inhaled the corn, even the juice, and we didn't have any more food at all, even the cookie dough was gone, so I was just sitting in a room with three really really hungry-high people.

Singing helped.

The song _If I Fell_ came on in the movie. Lani loved the Beetles almost as much as I did; she was who gave me the CD. Only she and I knew the words but we all sang along anyway.

" _If I fell in love with you,  
would you promise to be true,  
and help me understand?  
'Cos I've been in love before,  
and I found that love was more,  
than just holding hands."_

In the middle of the song, Carl, who was slouched across my legs, whispered to me, "We should do something crazy."

"Yeah, man." I grinned at him. "We will."

"Okay," Carl said. He was squinting a lot. I laughed and shook my head and I also had to move his face because he started to mumble into my lap. "What can we do now though?" His face was buried in my jacket so when he said, "All of us?" it was muffled.

Lani was mumbling along with the song. Ben's head was back and he was grinning open-mouthed at the ceiling. I could see the small gap between his two front teeth. They all looked like walkers; the docile ones that've had all their teeth knocked out and their hands cut off—only I didn't know if I liked thinking about that so much, so I thought of something else.

"We'll finish this movie," I answered. "Then we'll watch another."

" _Crazy,_ " Carl told me.

"Yeah," I said, " _crazy._ " And this was when someone new entered the room. I startled. If it was one of the guards we were all in shit, but it was only Ray. "Oh." I sighed. "Hey, man."

"Ay. Guys." He saluted and looked around. " _Sheesh._ Y'all making a cloud in here."

"Still doesn't beat last week," I said. Last week Ray and I smoked so much we fogged-out his whole attic. The little sun-window looked like a chimney when we pushed it open.

I got up to greet him.

We bumped fists.

"You clean?" Ray asked me, checking my eyes for any red. I nodded and smiled. He looked sort of proud. "Whoa, Oliver. That's a first." He stopped laughing when I punched his shoulder. Ray looked at me for a second. I knew he was telling me he was still my friend in his head and I knew he was asking if I was still his, and I gave him a small shrug, and then we were both hugging. Ray sighed into my shoulder and patted my back. "Glad you're back, bro."

I pulled away. I wanted to thank him. I wanted to say I didn't mean to scare him, that I didn't mean to yell at him, but all I said was, "Yeah."

Ray smiled.

I asked, "Where's Lev?"

"Didn't feel like coming," Ray shrugged. He held up a brown bag. I knew what was inside it. Ray's dad worked in combat training, people liked him so much they give him home-made food sometimes, and _Ray_ liked to use what he called his _'family discount'_ to sneak some along whenever he hung out with us. "Figured you guys'd be hungry."

I grinned and turned to the others. "Guys, food."

* * *

Ben devoured the cookies and Carl and Lani stuck to the fruit salad and the slice of apple pie. They were all stuffing their faces, so I talked to Ray in private.

"Lev didn't feel like coming?"

Ray shrugged.

I gave him a look. "So... you know, that I'm—"

Nod.

"And, we're cool?" I asked.

Another shrug. Ray was never a good liar. He sighed uncomfortably. For a few minutes the quiet between us was filled with the Beatles and chomping and moaning. Finally, Ray asked me, "How come y'all never told us?"

I looked at him. "I wasn't kissing any of _you_."

"Nah," he said, "not the gay shit. I don't care about that."

I frowned.

"You had a whole other group, man. _That's_ something you tell a friend." Morayo looked me in the eyes. "We friends, right?"

" _Yes,_ Ray."

He was frowning. "I mean, come on, we all know you keep secrets, but this? This was huge."

"You knew I had secrets?"

Ray just looked at me. "You're good at math, bro, but you never really added up."

I thought that was a really strange thing to say. Ray did that sometimes, spoke like a philosopher. Thing is, sometimes I wasn't smart enough to understand him. I think he was talking about the lying. I lied a lot to them at the start—where I got my scars, the story about my arm, why I didn't like doing laundry, stuff like that. I wanted to be a different person so badly, and I was, but the mask got heavy and I guess I must've started slacking.

"You never asked me anything," I said.

"Figured it was better to get told," Ray said.

We looked at the others while they laughed and ate and sang.

"You don't care?" I asked him. "About... you know, the..."

"The gay shit?"

I nodded.

"Nah. I don't care."

"What if it's bi shit instead?"

Ray said it again: "Don't care."

I took a little longer asking the next question. "And Lev?"

Ray didn't speak.

I didn't either, for a while.

"Ray?"

He looked at me. His hair was down that night, dreadlocks all over the place like tree branches. He rubbed his undercut—I watched his Dad shave the patterns into it a week before and it was like watching a movie. Very cool.

"Lani told us she likes girls," Ray explained, "dude was cool with it, you know? But it's different to him, when it's guys."

"Oh," I said.

Ray was quiet. He was a nail biter—I remember they looked raw that night.

"Guess I'm not surprised," I admitted. Ray frowned at me. I frowned at him. "Well, the first time I met you guys, you knocked a kid's tooth out for wearing a dress."

Ray looked guilty. "I didn't think, okay? I was just doing it because I – I..." He stopped. It was always kind of crazy watching Ray blush. His skin was so dark. The colour was like a penny, or like the colour of that big red-wood tree out by the gazebo whenever it rained.

"Oh," I said.

Ray was silent.

" _Ohh,_ " again.

He punched me. "Quit that, would you?!" His eyes were a little wet. I rubbed my arm. If I didn't know him, I'd have thought he was angry at me. But he wasn't, not at me. I knew it because he wouldn't look at me.

"Hey," I said quietly. "It's okay if you like him. It is."

Ray shushed me. "Don't call it that."

"Why?"

"It's gay."

"That is usually the definition." I got a bad glare. "Okay, okay... okay."

We both sighed together.

"It's just a crush. Stupid," Ray said. He tutted through his teeth. "My sisters would turn in they graves if they saw me pining over some skinny white boy."

"You had sisters?"

"Six," he said. "Three older, three younger." He was quiet for a while. He shook his head. "They was like my edges. After my mom died, it was like they was keepin' me whole. They was like my momma all split up into six different people. Now, without 'em, I'm all out of shape. Dad, too."

We were quiet for a while. I didn't know what it felt like to have sisters, but I knew what it felt like to have an older brother. I wondered what it was like to be the middle child, and then I realised that I kind of was the middle child and that I just never got to meet my little brother.

"I'm sorry about your family."

Ray just nodded.

I thought of something else to talk about.

"Lev's not really that skinny," I said. "He's..." I had to think of an appropriate word. " _Toned._ " I wasn't sure that was a good choice, but Ray didn't seem to care.

"Wasn't when she knew him," he said. That was interesting to me. I tried to picture it; Leviathan, younger, small and scrawny. It was like imagining Carl with a shaved head.

"Skinny people aren't so bad," I said.

"What about white people?" Ray asked.

"Most of us are cool."

Ray gave me a funny look. I guess he didn't really see me as a white boy, since my skin was darker than most white people's. But all I had as a reason for that was _southern Italian ancestors—_ that and too much sun and not enough sun lotion. Hesitantly, Ray said, "And boys?"

"Oh," I said, " _dude._ Boys are _so_ great."

Ray hit me again so I apologised. He didn't really seem that mad at all now. He said, "Figured I could tell you. Since you showed up here with your own skinny white boy."

I looked at Carl and smiled a little. His eyes were on Ringo Starr but his mouth was all over those strawberries. "I don't think you give enough credit," I said.

Ray laughed. "You're biased."

"I'm biased."

He tutted. I looked at him. I smiled. Ray's smile looked sad.

"It's pretty exciting," I admitted. "I've never had so many gay friends before."

Ray punched me again.

" _Jesus!_ " I yelled. "Would you _quit_ that?"

"I'm not gay," he said over me. "I just like looking at dudes sometimes. And, you know, ain't ever thought of no girls like that."

I smiled at him. "It's okay, man."

He sighed, smiled— _sad_. I hated that.

"Just sucks," he said. He was talking through his fingers like he was checking the words weren't going to come out wrong. "I know he ain't into... _that._ I know. And I been known since I realised I..." He started over. " _Just_ friends. You get used to it."

"Yeah," I said, even though I knew first-hand that it didn't really work that way.

Ray shook his head. "I just... I thought he knew. Not that I like him, or whatever. I just thought he knew about... _me._ "

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, same, man."

We didn't really talk for a while. The others were still eating but mostly they were just watching the movie. Carl was curled up with me again. I told Ray that Leviathan might learn to stop hating people like us, that he shouldn't have to hide for anybody. "They're gonna find out one day. If they stick around or not, that's up to them. But if they do, then you know that that's a person worth keeping around." It all sounded a lot less jumbly in my head. I was wondering if I was maybe getting a little high from the smoke in the room. Either way, Ray seemed to appreciate what I said all the same.

I got this idea.

"Ray?"

"Sup, bro?"

"Do you know that guy, at supper?"

Ray looked at me. "Korean dude?"

"He's Chinese."

"Right," he said. "What about him?"

I grinned.

* * *

Later, when all the food was gone and we were on our second movie, _Billy Elliot_ , I was writing two letters with the paper and pen I found on the TV stand, one titled: _Joey. S._ And the other: _Ez. P._

It was the first time I'd ever seen Billy Elliot. There were a lot of songs by T. Rex: _Cosmic Dancer, Get It On, I Love to Boogie, Children of the Revolution. . ._ and they made me think of Joey a lot. But I liked it, the movie. Everyone else liked it too, but it was so late at night that they were starting to fall asleep around the time Billy was preparing for his ballet audition with Miss. . . It was that scene where Miss was looking for Billy in the changing room after he'd rushed out of practice. She was trying to talk him down after a difficult routine and he was yelling at her through the cubicle: _"You're the same as everybody else! All you want is to tell me what to do!"_ And then they were yelling at each other. _"YOU'RE A FAILURE!"_ Billy said, and Miss said back, _"DON'T YOU DARE TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!"_ and Billy burst out of the cubicle and got right in her face. He screamed at her. _"DON'T PICK ON ME 'COZ YOU FUCKED UP YOUR OWN LIFE!"_ and then Miss slapped him. . . I thought of that night, after the welcome party when Carol hit me, how I couldn't believe she did it and how she couldn't believe it either, and how she just held me while I cried into her front, just like Miss and Billy. . .

Carl was snoring, only a little, but he still startled Ben awake. He murmured something about Henry and cookies, and then he looked over at the noise and snickered.

I pulled Carl closer.

"Still hurt?" Ben asked me.

"Huh?" I asked.

He pointed at my face, so I touched it. My cheek still stung, so I shrugged. "Joey came out worse," I said.

"You gotta stop getting into fights, man."

"No, no," I said, "I didn't try to fight back. Not like that. I just mean... I hurt him. I hurt him real bad."

Ben thought about this for a long time, and then, finally, he just looked at me and said, "To injure an opponent is to injure yourself."

I didn't know if he meant me as the opponent or Joey. I guessed he meant both. Or maybe he didn't know what he was talking about at all because he was so high, and he was just letting me think it all out myself. One time, I told Ben that I'd killed people. He just said that to me. _To injure an opponent is to injure yourself._ And I wondered if he knew how it felt, to take a life. How every time it took a little piece of _you_ along with it. But I didn't ask. I just figured Ben was either the wisest guy I knew or he was somehow made of strange coincidences.

"Apple?"

"Yeah, Ben."

"I went out on my own today, into the forest. That's why I missed supper."

I wasn't upset over this, so I just smiled. I knew Ben got anxious doing that. First time he and I went out into the woods, I wound up having to take down seven walkers by myself while Ben was struggling to take down one. I got mad at him. In his panic, he'd gotten out his gun and shot it without thinking. I felt the bullet fly right past my face. I took down the dead and marched right up to him and snatched his gun away. Ben was saying sorry, but I got in his face and yelled, "You _don't_ put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to _shoot_ , asshole!" and Ben just said he was sorry again, over and over, so I calmed down and gave him his gun back.

I kept watching the movie.

"I saw her," Ben said after a while.

I looked at him. "You didn't tell her, did you?"

"What?"

"That we're here."

"Oh. No. No. Ezekiel talked to me. Mentioned... He mentioned not to mention... you." Ben trailed. He put his head back on the wall and closed his eyes. He didn't get high a lot, what with trying to be a good role model for his little brother. Today must have been stressful for him.

I sighed. As guilty as I felt, I also felt relieved that he'd not told her. It was kinder to her.

I wanted to ask if Carol had asked him about me, but I didn't.

Then Lani lifted her head. "Who are you talking about?"

"Nobody," I told her.

She was curled up in Ben's arms. I'd never seen her like that. She wasn't really the cuddling kind. Neither was I, especially when I was high—if I was ever touched and I didn't want to be touched then I'd get this bad prickly feeling like my skin itched, so yeah, not a cuddler. But Lani was, like Carl was. I was thinking that Ben may have just been putting up with it, but then I got to thinking that Ben might've been a cuddler, too.

He rubbed Lani's shoulder and cooed, "Oliver's got a lot of secrets, Lani."

"I know," she whispered. "Secrets are heavy."

Ben looked at me. "Yeah. Heavy."

I felt my chest fill with it, that heaviness. I whispered it back. "Heavy." And just like that, I was sad again. Sometimes the sad came out of nowhere, like a tide, or a speeding truck. I figured that maybe I needed that though—I don't know. I got to thinking of the storm last year, how that came out of nowhere when we needed it so badly. I remembered the storm trapping me and my group inside of that old barn for a night, how it almost killed us. I felt so apart from the world, like I didn't belong anywhere, like the world was trying to take itself back again without me. I was so _lost_. And it never really went away. But then, in the morning, I woke up and I saw how the storm had left the world. It was calm and quiet and mending itself, and I wanted to be that too.

I didn't know when I forgot that, that I wanted that so much. I didn't know how. I didn't know why. All I knew, sitting on the beanbag with Carl slouched across my chest, was that I still did want that, to be calm and quiet and mending myself, and I was glad.

* * *

It was a while before Carl woke up and asked for food. It dawned on me a while before that, that he might've only gotten high to stop me from getting high, too. In truth, I could've still smoked if I bugged Ben enough, but I don't think I really wanted to.

We dropped Lani home first.

Juni was waiting up. He was sitting directly in front of the door on the floor with his legs crossed and that red-less rubix cube in his hands. He was wearing an oversized purple dressing gown, and he looked cold and miserable and tired. I didn't know how to sign _I'm sorry_ , so I just said it. Juni read my lips and shrugged. The thing about Juni Hale was that he didn't really hold grudges, so once Lani assured him she was fine, they made a snack together and things were forgiven again. Their grandma was still sleeping, so with that, we said goodnight and left.

Ray was able to sneak back in easy. I said, "Later, Ray," and he said back, "Later, man. Night, Ben. Ay, nice meeting you, Carl." Carl bumped his fist, only he hadn't let go of my hand yet. Ray laughed. I didn't tell him that we were leaving tomorrow.

On our way to Ben's house, Ben told me, "I think Ezekiel's gonna help you guys."

"How'd you know?" I asked—I had to reach for Carl's sleeve to stop him wandering off into the orchard as we passed through. Ben grinned at him.

"Ezekiel was telling Henry this bedtime story earlier," he says. "One of Martin Luther King's freedom speeches." He started putting on Ezekiel's voice... " _Free at last, Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last._ "

Ben shrugged.

"I think it was his way of convincing himself it's the right thing to do," he said, "to fight. He doesn't know it yet, but he will, soon." Ben knew Ezekiel so well. I wondered maybe if I was wrong before. People weren't pairing up in the Kingdom. Not really. They were all in it together like a big spider web of family. I thought of my spider web family, and I wondered why it was so broken lately.

"And you'll fight, too?" I asked him.

Ben thought for a minute.

"My dad always said that if you're asked to be the hero, be a hero," he said to me. "So yeah. Yeah, I will. Night." He waved and headed inside his place.

"Night, Ben."

When I turned around, Carl was gone.

" _Shit._ "

Luckily, I found him back at the orchard.

He was stealing pomegranates.

I laughed my ass off. And then Carl started laughing too, and for this really awesome few minutes we were both just laughing and laughing and laughing. I don't know if we were laughing over the pomegranates or because he was high, or maybe it was just because we felt safe. Maybe we were even happy. I don't know. I _didn't_ know. But it didn't even matter. We were just laughing and laughing and then he said that we were Billy and Michael from the movie and that he wished we had a tutu for one of us, like Michael did, so I tied my jacket around his waist instead and then we danced and danced around the garden singing _Ride a White Swan. . ._

 _"Wear a tall hat like a druid in the old days,  
wear a tall hat and a tattooed gown.  
Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane,  
wear your hair long, babe you can't go wrong."_

And then, at the top of his lungs, Carl howled. . .

 _"DA-DA-DI-DI-DA! DA-DA-DI-DI-DA! DA-DA-DI-DI-DA!"_

I shushed him and muffled his giggles into my shoulder until he calmed down again. Once he did, he just laughed, and then he looked at me very carefully and smiled, like he was preparing himself for something big, but in the end all he said was, "I'm _so_ hungry, Oliver."

"Munchies," I diagnosed.

" _So huuungry_."

"Here, try these. Clementine oranges, they're so great. Can't take too much though."

I sat there and watched him eat for a while. He ate slowly. Not me. When I'd get the munchies, I always ate as fast as I could. Once or twice it came back up again. Carl was more careful though, calmer, more laid back. It wasn't so _mustgetthisdone_ but more _this...is...good...and...I...really...like...it...right...now._ It was nice; Carl didn't spend a lot of time thinking that way. I guess it was also probably a little problematic, but I decided not to worry about it.

"It's Carol," Carl told me. Out of nowhere. "That's who Ben saw in the woods. She's who you're protecting. And why you're so sad."

He wasn't looking at me and I was glad because I couldn't stop staring at him.

"She's not really gone," he said, "only she is, too, isn't she?"

He did look at me then. Right at me.

He spoke through his mouthful. "I'm sorry you feel so alone, Oliver."

And then I was seeing rivers. God. I was crying my eyes out. Carl stopped eating. He shuffled close and pulled me into his arms. His hug was tight and heavy, like Morgan's was, but I suddenly felt so light, like air. Secrets sucked. I had so many. But at least, after that moment, I didn't have any from him.

"God, Oliver," Carl giggled.

I pulled away and looked at him. "W—What?"

"I can't hold onto my thoughts."

I wiped my eyes, and then I laughed really hard. "Yeah, you said that." He made a long, slow, _ughhhh_ noise. I loved Carl. I loved Carl so much. "Come with me," I told him, "just stay quiet, okay?"

"What are we doing?"

I wiped my eyes and kissed his cheek. "Fixing things."

* * *

Carl was waiting around the corner of Joey's place.

I slipped my knife into the crack of the window frame, but the latch was already unlocked. The window pulled up easy, a few cementers. Joey was sleeping inside. There was a glass bottle of goats' milk on his bedside shelf and I watched him for a second, a little sad, a little glad. I reached across and returned T. Rex and Pink Floyd—shit, I really liked those albums. I left them on the table with the letter I wrote for him, only there was another letter already there, folded, with nothing but a rough drawing of glasses as a title. _My_ glasses.

Quietly, I took the letter and shut the window again.

"What does it say?" Carl asked me on our way back to my room.

I unfolded it.

 _'Another Chinese superstition: If you give someone a sharp gift, it means your relationship will be severed. This = why I wouldn't use the knife.'_

Carl read it too, but didn't ask any questions about it. I think he got that me and Joey had something, even if it wasn't like the same something he and I had—me and Carl. I think that Carl knew I liked him. And I think that that was hard for him. But I think he was just really glad that I didn't love him. And I was really glad that he could understand the difference like how I _felt_ it, even though he'd never felt it himself—or maybe he had.

I knew it was best not to ask.

He handed the letter back and asked me, "What did you write to him?"

"I told him I was sorry for shutting him out," I answered, "and I told him thanks, for pushing through anyway."

Carl smiled a little. "So poetic," he said, "like lyrics to a song or something."

"Maybe," I said. I didn't mention that I also put a P.S. It said: _I know this guy. His name's Morayo Dimka. He's really really great._ It didn't really need to be a secret but for Ray's privacy and dignity I decided to keep it to myself.

Carl thought for a few minutes in quiet. I handed him another Clementine that was inside his pocket. As he peeled, he asked me, "So, did you talk to him face-to-face?"

"It wouldn't help," I answered, "not right now. Not to see me."

He repeated what I'd said a few times, then finally asked. "You know that?"

"I know that."

Carl nodded. He was looking at the fresh bruise on my cheek. Joey's right cross was pretty impressive. **_Rick would be proud._** Carl just smiled again. I wasn't sure if he knew what I was thinking or if he just thought I deserved the punches. He took a breath and grabbed my hand. "Think you'll ever write your own?"

"Songs?"

"Mhm."

I shrugged, then said, "I'll write you a song."

Carl giggled, then looked ahead like he only just realised we were headed somewhere. He frowned. "Where are we going now?"

I inhaled. "The ghost."

* * *

Esme's mom answered the door. She was a guard, getting ready for a night-shift. She didn't look much like Esme. Esme's skin was dark, but Esme's mom had paler skin and more Western characteristics, and her eyes were pale brown. Both their hair was identical though, big and black and frizzy. Unlike Esme, their mom tied her hair back, a little like Sasha.

"Sorry it's so late," I said. Carl, again, was waiting out of sight.

"It is," Miss. Pretti replied.

I looked past her. No Esme, but there was a belt hung over the edge of the desk and it made me nervous. "Is Esme up?" I asked. "I need to talk to them."

"No," she said.

"Well, could—"

She turned away from me and backed up, so I stepped aside while she locked the door. She told me to go away, so I did, and I watched from afar as she headed over to her post. My stomach was heavy. I hadn't seen Esme at supper. I hadn't seen Esme since I got back. When I thought about it, I realised I hadn't seen Esme for half a week.

I found Carl and helped him to his feet. He was pretty tired, but at least he wasn't forgetting his sentences so bad anymore. He was just really sleepy and calm and docile.

"Come on," I told him. "Around back."

I found the right window. If I climbed the dumpster I could get up onto the roof without needing much arm strength. Easy. Carl laid across the grass, in my sight. With a little difficulty, I got up onto the second floor. The roof didn't feel sturdy so I crawled. Crawled, crawled, crawled. Made it. I checked through the window and Esme was there, sitting on the floor in the dark, knees up, head in hands, alone.

They were awake; I knew because their knees were swaying.

I tapped the glass.

Esme startled. In only underwear and a vest, I could see a lot of bruises. More than I'd seen before. Esme checked nobody heard me, then tiptoed over and opened the window.

"Heard you were back."

"Yeah."

"Sorry..." We both said that at the same time.

"What? Why?" We both said _that_ at the same time, too.

I shrugged. Esme shrugged too, then sighed. I sighed too. We both got a little annoyed by this, how we copied each other on accident sometimes. Esme was born a day ahead of me, sure, but technically we were born at the same time, from the time difference. I had this dumb idea that we were twins. Unrelated twins. Twins in the brain but not twins in blood or appearance. Dumb, I know. But it was a nice thought.

Esme retrieved a backpack and took out a small note. I recognised it.

"It was you? You took my letter?"

Esme handed it to me.

"Why didn't you give it to the King?" I asked.

"I was going to," Esme explained, "but he started sending out search parties. You wrote that you didn't need anybody to come looking. You wrote that you were going home. I didn't want them to give up..."

"Oh."

We were quiet for a minute.

"I'm not falling in love with you," Esme said.

"I know," I said.

They looked at the floor. "I just... care. We're friends."

"We're friends," I agreed.

There was a soft groan from the ground and we both looked.

"Who's that?" Esme asked.

"Carl. My boyfriend," I said. "I'd introduce you, but he's still kind of high right now."

Esme looked at me. "Does he..."

"He knows," I said. Esme seemed confused. I didn't want to explain. "Look, I want to fix things."

"What is there to fix?"

"I want to help you with your mom."

Esme frowned. "I don't need help with—"

"Ez," I said, "she beats you."

"I'm fine."

"I know you're not."

Shit. Esme looked mad.

"You shouldn't have to be afraid of her," I said. "I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm not gonna be around when you want to get away from everything. I—I gotta know you'll be okay."

Esme blinked. "Tomorrow?"

Just like that it hit me again how many people I was going to be leaving behind. I didn't say anything, but Esme's head shook anyway.

"Listen to me, please," I said. "I've seen this before and it doesn't get any better. You need to tell somebody. You need to—"

"You weren't from the road, were you?"

I didn't say anything. I wanted to. But I thought of my oath. The secret Ezekiel kept from his people. Esme watched me very carefully.

"There are other places," they said. "You're from another settlement. Something's happening, isn't it? I've heard rumours. Leviathan hears stuff, from his mom. He says you know stuff, too."

I had no idea about that. Leviathan never said any of this to me. Not once, even though he knew I was on the run team with his mom. I guessed she must've told him not to talk about it with me, or maybe he just didn't want to.

 _Better to get told._

I was confused.

A breeze shook inside Esme's hair. Mine, too.

Esme sighed. "I can't stand your quiet sometimes."

"I'm sorry."

"Just go."

"Ez, your mom's—"

"My mom is all I have."

I stared at them, helpless. Esme looked at my chest and pressed a palm flat to it.

"You can go."

"Ez..."

"I'm okay. I swear. I can take care of myself."

"Okay, okay. Fine. But I gotta give you this." I handed over the letter I wrote them. "Don't open it until I'm gone." All that was in there was a shitty drawing of a turtle I did with a speech bubble saying: _'Esme's Pretti nice and Oliver's De Lamo.'_ Carl helped me think of the puns. Esme's favourite thing in the world was puns.

Esme nodded. "I'll see you around, Oliver."

"Yeah." I felt like shit. "See you, Ez."

Quietly, and without looking at me, Esme shut the window and closed the blind. I felt like a flat tire while I climbed down onto the ground again. Carl noticed. He was sitting up and touching the grass, stroking the seedlings. When he looked at me he stopped. "How'd it go?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I don't know," I said again. I was mad, but I realised it and stopped. I sighed. "Ez doesn't want help. They told me to go."

"Okay."

I sat with him for a while with my head on his shoulder and my hand in both of his.

"Come on," Carl said finally, getting up, "let's go."

"Okay."

We walked a few minutes until we were sneaking back into my room and whispering.

"Thanks for coming," I said, "soldier."

"Sure," Carl said, "lost boy."

I kissed his cheek and pulled him into bed.

"Oliver?"

"Yeah."

"When can we do something crazy?"

"I don't know, Carl," I said. "In the morning."

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _If I Fell_ by The Beatles and _Ride A White Swan_ by T. Rex.

I'm sorry, I had to do the Glenn parallel: ongoing Korean/Chinese mix-up. Also I feel like Oliver definitely called me out for taking inspiration from Billy Elliot when I wrote the Carol slap scene xD

For some reason, Ray came to me in a dream a few weeks ago and told me all of that stuff about his sisters and mom. He told me he loved them so much and that he needed me to write about them, and I remember wanting to hug him and tell him I was sorry for writing him without them and then I woke up feeling so upset and moved and ugh idk XD my brain is weird.

As always,  
Happy reading.


	45. Rock in the Road, Part 4: Crazy

**RHatch89** Thank you!

 **Th Sorrowful Deity** I am so ready for LoU2! Also yeah, that would've been bad...

 **XxEvilKittyxX** Thank you! That means a lot x

 **Johnjohn1970** Will do, thanks!

 **Sytheion** xD thank you so much, and yeah, Joey's probably gonna be piiiiissed.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

In the morning, I woke up and realised Carl was already awake. He was looking at the sun, squinting with his neck bent at an odd angle so that through the gap in the blinds the light was streaked right across his eye.

"Carl?"

He seemed not to hear me.

"What are you doing, man?"

I pulled him out of the shining-zone and asked what he was doing again, and in the most spectacular morning voice, Carl mumbled, "I was looking at the light-shapes in my eyelashes."

"That's probably not a great idea."

"I've got a blind spot. Oh no."

"Shit, dude. That's totally not good."

Carl shrugged, and then he rolled over and straddled me. He put his hands flat to my chest and blinked, and then he shut his eye and dipped his head, like he was meditating, or thinking very hard about something.

He looked at me. "I think I'm still high."

"Yeah," I admitted. "The feeling sticks around for a bit on the first time."

Carl didn't say anything back.

"You okay?" I asked. Carl shrugged again, and then he put his hands over my eyes. I could smell his scent in his fingertips, feel the clammy dampness of his palms on my cheeks. I wanted to say, "I love you," but I just said, "Are you still mad at me?"

Again, he shrugged.

"So... why are you covering my eyes?"

"They're distracting."

I smiled. He put his thumb over my smile—I hated the fact that my mouth was so thin he could cover it with one thumb. Still, it made me laugh. I stopped when he didn't laugh, too.

We were quiet for a moment.

 _I love you,_ I thought and thought and wished I would say it. _  
I love you,  
I love you,  
I love you._

"I... uh..."

 ** _Don't.  
_** _Why?  
 **Because I'm sick of it hurting when it's over.**_

"Huh?" Carl asked.

"Nothing," I said.

Carl uncovered my face. He looked at me, and then he asked, "Why are you crying?"

"I'm not."

"You are."

"Not."

He didn't say anything. He was going to, but I didn't let him. I pushed myself up and kissed him, and then I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and pushed my stump through his hair. Carl kissed me—real deep and hard and wet. He whispered, "You are crying." And I whispered back, "Then kiss me," ... "kiss me until I—I'm not anymore." And he did. And we kept on kissing until Carl pulled away and trudged under the bedsheets.

I had his hair in my hand, these grunts coming out of the back of my throat. My back was arching and my toes were cracking and — and we didn't notice somebody knocking until Rick also known as _Rick the father to the boy sucking me off_. . .  
walked  
into  
my  
 _fucking_  
bedroom.

" _Nyahh!_ "

There was shoving and yanking and rolling. Carl collapsed off the bed and hid there behind it, both of us staring at him like out-of-breath deer caught in headlights. Rick looked up at us from the boot he'd been pulling on his foot. He looked like he usually did; tall and stressed and bearded, except now he was also confused, and then the confusion went away and he just looked very uncomfortable.

He squinted, then shifted on his hips and turned away a little. "I, err..." He pointed to the side at us. I was holding the sheet up against my chest and Carl was peeking over the mattress. "I was coming to tell you, we're headed off soon... Get your stuff ready."

"Sure, Dad." "Yessir."

Rick nodded twice, looked at us once, nodded again, then left the room. The door snapped shut behind him.

I could hear Carl panting.

"Oops," I said.

Carl slumped against the rug and groaned.

* * *

Soon after, we were all headed to meet Ezekiel. On our way, Ray and Leviathan passed us by, running track with the morning team. Leviathan wouldn't look at me, but Ray did. He put up two subtle fingers in peace and I put up two fingers back.

The King was waiting for us at target practice while a group of kids were having an archery lesson. Both teachers were amputees. The woman was a leg amputee, and the guy, a hand, like me. Except his prosthetic was an attachment, so it looked more like a hand it just didn't move at all. I knew them both. The lady once talked to me. She told me she saw me at practice that morning and that I was good, that she thought I'd do well in archery, once I got my prosthetic. Thing was, it was the evening I spewed pork cobbler across the cafeteria. She had to dodge out of the way. Yeah, I didn't try talking to her again after that. In fact, I didn't really try talking to any of the amputees here. I kept my distance. I never knew why, exactly, just that when I saw them, I hurt.

Maybe they hurt too when they looked at me.

Guess I just got tired of all the hurting.

"This is life here," Ezekiel told us. "Every day. But it came at a cost. And I wanted more of this. I wanted to expand. To create more places like this. Men and women lost their limbs. Children lost their parents because I sent them into battle against the wasted when I did not need to."

Rick stepped forward. "This is different."

"It isn't."

"It is." Rick's voice sounded soft and gentle. "The dead don't rule us. The world doesn't look like this outside your walls. People don't have it as good. Some people don't have it good _at all_."

"I have to worry about my people."

I looked at Benjamin—I guess for help. He was over in the shade practising his Aikido. He'd gotten good; had got his own staff. He swung it so swiftly it whistled, and then he glanced at me, and despite what he could hear Ezekiel saying, he nodded to me anyway. I figured that meant I should trust him, so I did. Daryl, not so much: "You call yourself a damn king," he said. "You sure as hell don't act like one."

"All of this came at a cost." Ezekiel grimaced at him. "It was lives. Arms. Legs." He pointed across to the archery lesson. Daryl didn't look away from him. Indifferent, Ezekiel just turned away and spoke to Rick again. "The peace we have with the Saviors is uneasy, but it is peace. I have to hold on to it."

Rick shook his head at the ground.

"I have to try," Ezekiel said. He turned and spoke to all of us. "Although the Kingdom cannot grant you the aid you desire, the King is sympathetic to your plight. I offer our friend Daryl, asylum, for as long as he requires it. He will be safe here. The Saviors do not set foot inside our walls."

"How long d'you think that's gonna last?"

Ezekiel looked at him.

Daryl walked away.

Again, I looked at Benjamin. He was looking at me like he suddenly didn't know what was going on. He looked at Jerry. He looked confused too. Ezekiel didn't look at either of them. I got this feeling like I might've burst into tears. I was looking at this huge family web of the Kingdom all over again, only this time I saw all the breaks in it.

My group were following Daryl.

"Oliver..." Ben said, all breath. He stared at me. I thought of Patrick—I guess I knew why. Ben was so much like Patrick it was disgusting. Okay, maybe disgusting wasn't the right word. Maybe the right word was painful. Harrowing. Exhausting. Comforting. Thing is, big brothers were all the same to me. Patrick. Ron. Tyreese. Ray. Carl. They were idiots and they were goofy and they tried their best and usually wound up screwing up anyway, but damn me to hell if they weren't some of the best guys I knew.

"I gotta go, man," I said. Shit—I hated the way my voice broke just then. "I—I gotta go."

Ben hugged me. He gulped me up in one big messy embrace. I felt his arms; they were firm and squeezing around my head and shoulders. I felt totally safe and I couldn't stand it.

"I gotta go," I repeated. I didn't want to cry. _Don't cry. Don't cry._ "Ben, I gotta go."

"Yeah." Ben hiccupped. "Yeah." He pulled away.

I wiped my face. "Tell—Tell Lani and Ray and... Tell them..."

Ben just nodded.

"I'll see you again," I said.

Ben shrugged. He made that lame bleaty noise like he did sometimes, and then he slipped his weed tin and a packet of papers into my pocket. "Want you to have these."

"Don't you want it?"

He shrugged. "Give it back when I see you next. I'll top it up for you."

I laughed. "Okay."

He hugged me again, then stepped back and smiled. "Later, Apple."

"Okay."

Ezekiel clapped my shoulder.

"Okay," I said again. I turned away. I didn't look back. Carl and I caught up with the others who were all heading to the gates with Richard and Morgan. I didn't notice I was mad until I heard my voice. "Thought Ezekiel would do it," I whispered.

Carl still hadn't really said much that morning. He was all quiet and thinking, like he was figuring out a difficult equation in his head. But he was usually doing that anyway so nobody was very suspicious. His father probably thought he was just embarrassed about earlier.

"Maybe Morgan can change Ezekiel's mind," Carl said. "Maybe Benjamin will."

I shook my head. "King's already made his decision."

"Might be a good thing," he whispered to me. "Now she won't find out you're here."

I looked at him.

A part of me was hoping Carl had forgotten what I'd told him last night, or rather what he'd figured out, but a part of me wasn't too. I wasn't sure I knew how to comprehend how disorienting the feeling of being relieved and guilty at the same time was for me. Sometimes it felt like my brain was getting pulled through one of those scary car-crusher machines, the ones you find in junkyards.

"Everything's gonna be okay," Carl said.

"We don't even have enough to take on one outpost," I told him. "The Kingdom has to get involved or we won't get anywhere. Just by giving the Saviors all that shit, every day, they're getting stronger, harder to fight."

Carl took my hook. At first I didn't notice. When I did, I looked at it, then at him. He was smiling this tiny bit, squinting a little. I took a deep breath, but I guess it made me feel better because I smiled too.

"Still got a blind spot?"

"Nah," he answered. "It went away."

We all stopped in front of the gate. Morgan gave me a tight smile and a nod. Richard just sort of looked.

"Hey, open it up," Daryl asked. "We're goin'."

"You're not," Rick said as we went through.

"I'm not staying here."

"You have to," Rick told him. "It's the smartest play. You know it is."

Daryl looked furious. He was pacing. I wanted to say goodbye, the others too, but we knew it was better not to. Daryl hated goodbyes more than any of us. I did look back though. Rick had his hand on Daryl's shoulder. They were talking. Then Rick let go and walked away.

Daryl watched us go, and just like that, the Kingdom closed its gates.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

Negan was on the radio.

" _For anyone out there who loved the obese bastard as much as I did, I just want to say a few words._ _Fat Joe was not the most badass son-of-a-bitch, but he was loyal. He had a great sense of humour. In fact, we were just joking about oral sex with Lucille the other day!_ _Things will not be the same now that he's dead. Without Fat Joe, Skinny Joe is just, pfft... Joe. So it's a goddamn tragedy.  
So,  
let's  
have  
a moment  
of silence."_

Just as we were about to leave the on-ramp onto the highway, Dad had to stop the van. Ahead, in the road, were three rows of parked cars.

"Someone's trying to block the way," Jesus said. "Gotta be the Saviors."

"Oliver..." Dad said.

Oliver, sitting between me and Jesus, was staring at him, my dad. At his beard, specifically. I wondered if he was jealous.

Impatient, Dad looked at him through the mirror and squinted. " _Oliver._ "

He snapped out of it. "Uh, y-yeah."

"You seen these?"

Oliver followed Dad's chin jerk ahead at the cars and shook his head. "I didn't take this route," he answered. "Morgan's marks took me cross-country. I ended up riding by this school for..." He trailed off when he realised he was rambling.

"Look..." I pointed out the window on my side. Across the landscape, between a gap in some trees in the distance, was a factory. "I think that's their base over there."

"Yeah, that's it," Jesus said. "Must be trying to make it hard to get to them."

My throat was dry. Just looking at the place put me on edge. I think Oliver noticed because his shoulder became this tiny bit heavier against mine. I pressed the toes of our shoes under Michonne's seat.

Dad sighed. "We gotta keep going. We'll move them, and then we'll move them back. They don't need to know we were here."

We got to work on pushing three cars to the side to make a path. Michonne was keeping watch through binoculars, and after a few minutes, called out.

"Rick... Come take a look at this."

* * *

Down the highway, on the other side, a line of steel stretched across the road between two cars. On one side there was a flip switch by a gas barrel with cables leading to a grid on the ground that was covering something. There were also some RPGs stowed away. _Our_ RPGs. But that still wasn't the most substantial part of our find. . .

Attached along the line, in bundles, were explosives.

Dad bent down and looked closely. They looked a little like the Clementine oranges in Ezekiel's garden to me, except sticks. Michonne walked along the line. "What's all this for?"

"Wait," I said. I was thinking about headways and warfare and demo sticks. "When I was hiding in the back of the truck, I heard a couple of them talking about this." I was nodding even though I didn't like where my sentence was headed. "This is for a herd."

"That's why it's a steel cable," Rosita said. "It's not just for one walker. It's for a lot."

I still didn't like where this was going. Oliver either, by the look on his face.

"I heard about that too," he told me, then looked at the others, "few days ago, in the latest pick-up. The Saviors were—"

"Wait, you met them?" Dad asked.

"Y—Yeah."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Dad sounded mad. Oliver stared at him, confused. Me, too. "Who was it, who was on the pick-up crew?"

"I didn't know them well."

" _Names,_ Oliver."

"Why?"

"Dad—"

"Because they could _recognise_ you," he growled over me. "They'd know we know about the Kingdom. They'd know we know about Hilltop."

Oliver's face went very pale then.

"Gavin," he said quickly, "Jared. Amelia, a-and the fourth guy never talked much but I think his name was Dave."

"Dave – Davey? David?"

"No, no. Just Dave. _Just_ Dave."

Dad looked relived, but he still shook his head and looked at us, "Any o' you recognise those names? Anything at all?"

We all shook our heads.

Oliver was wincing. Dad noticed. He looked twice his normal size and he stared him down. Oliver looked like he was shrinking. I didn't like how Dad kept doing that lately. I think he was just mad at Oliver in general, even if he didn't say so—this morning, and now this, obviously hadn't been helping.

"Last time," Oliver said, "Gavin had to have a fill-in 'cause he was busy with some mess-up somewhere else – this, I think. Because some guy wasn't here to sort out the herd."

"Mark."

Oliver looked at me. His voice shook. "Yeah... Mark."

I felt sick.

"And what?" Dad insisted at us. Oliver looked like he had something stuck in his throat. He swallowed. Dad said, "Another pick-up crew come?"

Oliver just nodded.

"What were their names, Oliver?" Michonne asked, like she already knew.

"Joe. Uh—Fat Joe."

"He's dead," Dad almost said over him, "who else? _Who else?_ "

"Chris."

Dad looked at us.

I nodded. "He was the one driving the truck. I – I killed him."

Dad's eyes held something then, for this tiny moment. He hurt when he heard me say that. I felt guilty. I felt like a murderer. _I was._ Dad gritted his teeth and looked back at Oliver. "Who else?"

"Some lady called Laura," Oliver said. "And a man. Simon."

I knew it was over then. _Game over._

"What did they look like?" Dad asked.

"I don't know."

" _Oliver..._ "

"Okay, okay, uh—Moustache. Simon had a moustache."

"And Laura?"

Oliver didn't want to talk. He had that look on his face, too. Like he knew the game was over. "Nose ring," he confessed. "And... And a tattoo, on her neck."

"Bingo," Rosita murmured.

" _Dammit!_ " Dad started yelling. Yelling like crazy. "God dammit, boy!"

Oliver just stood there staring and thinking away in his silence.

"We gotta take you back to the Kingdom," Michonne said. "You gotta stay with Daryl."

"What? No!" Oliver and I spoke at the same time.

"It's not an option."

"Oliver, if you get recognised, we're all dead."

Oliver's eyes were wet. He wouldn't look at any of us. My brain was spinning. I wanted to throw up. I knew I wasn't feeling great all morning but right now I wasn't even sure I was inside my own body anymore. I was a few seconds behind myself, rushing to catch up.

"We don't have time to talk about it now," Sasha said. "We _need_ these explosives."

"Yeah," Dad agreed. "Yeah, okay." He looked along the cable. "But we have to figure out how to disarm it first."

Rosita crouched in front of the grid. She pulled it up carefully. There was a hole dug in the ground and inside sat a battery and three blue rectangular sacks. There were wires everywhere. My brain went foggy. Tara's too, I guess, because she put her hands up and stepped away.

"Backing up is _not_ gonna make a difference if this thing goes off," Rosita said.

I looked at Oliver. He was gripping onto his shoulder and holding his breath, like _he_ was the one who could go off. He glanced at me and tried to smile. "This crazy enough for you?"

That made me laugh—my breath shook.

"Totally," I said.

 _"We got ourselves a red situation,"_ Negan announced from Jesus' pocket. He held the talkie up. " _I need a search party. See if Daryl ran home like the dumb animal that he is."_

" _On it."_ It was Simon. _"Be there in time for lunch."_

" _Turn that sleepy little burg upside down!"_

"We gotta go," Michonne said. "We gotta get there before them, but we need these. We need to clear a path anyway."

"Yeah," Dad agreed. "Alright." His eyes were crazy. He tilted his head down at the mechanism. " _Rosita?_ " She un-clipped something, then something else, then, slowly, she lifted the battery out from the rig and looked up at him.

"First part's done."

I heard Oliver start breathing again.

"What now?" Michonne asked her.

Rosita pointed. "We gotta unwrap the secondary explosives – the dynamite, the RPGs. Make sure these casings are _not_ messed up, and do _not_ mess them up, either. This thing could still blow."

"You all heard her. Let's go."

We got to it. Oliver soon realised that even with a hook and a hand, he needed a hand and _a hand_ for this—he discovered this by dropping a bundle of explosives. I lunged out and caught them a second before they would have killed us. We just stared at each other for a second, and then Oliver decided to loading everything instead.

"You can do that," I reassured him.

"Yeah, I can do that," he said, more to himself than me, and he did do that. _Fast._

Tara and I helped when Rosita told us to: "You can load the explosives into the trunk as long as they're in good shape. No dents, no tears. They're not live. They still need to be triggered to be set off."

She snatched one that Tara had picked up.

"Not that one. I don't like the way it looks."

"Okay."

Rosita left it a few yards away and the rest of us kept working. Oliver stopped at the van and looked ahead. He said, "Oh no..." and I didn't like how that sounded, so I looked too.

The herd was coming.

"Dad. Look."

His eyes followed my finger.

"Okay," he said. "There they are. But they're far."

Oliver went and grabbed an RPG. I got more dynamite.

"We still have time!" Dad yelled.

"You sure?" Sasha asked.

"We need these," Dad answered. "And we need to get the cars back in front of the on-ramp."

"They'll know we took their explosives, so does it matter?" Jesus asked.

"We want that herd to stay on the highway."

"Why?" Tara asked.

"We may need it."

"Okay," Rosita said. "Tara, Carl, Oliver, come on!" We got in. Tara drove us to the on-ramp while Dad, Michonne, Sasha and Jesus stayed and collected the rest of the explosives. We worked as fast as we could. Rosita sat in the cars and Tara, Oliver and I pushed them up-hill back to where we found them. It was hard work but it didn't take a long time, only it took even less time for the walkers to be right on our tail.

"Uh... cutting it kinda close, guys," Tara warned.

"We're gonna get trapped."

"Hurry," Oliver said. He was already getting in the van. He started up the engine. "Carl, come on!" I was staring at the others who were still unrigging the explosives. " _Dude!_ "

Rosita pulled my sleeve.

"Dammit!" I growled.

"We'll figure it out," she said.

We climbed in fast. The windows wound up slowly. Rosita and I had to lean right back to dodge the arms and teeth. The walkers shook the whole van. I looked for the others but they were gone. "W—Where are they?!"

"Your dad and Michonne got in the cars," Tara said.

"I saw them, too," Rosita said.

"What are they doing?" I asked.

"Maybe they'll hot-wire the cars," Oliver said. We all gave him a weird look and it took him a few seconds to notice us. "What?" He shrugged. "That's what they did in Terminator!"

This was crazy.

"Shit," someone said. Me. I cursed again. " _Dammit!_ "

"No, no, look," Rosita said. I did. And I also heard it too. The car horns. Some walkers were following it—most of them where. Through the moving bodies, we saw both Dad and Michonne sitting up in the cars. Engines revved. It was hard to see. I thought I saw Dad stick his arm out the window. He brought it up, his arm. . . then swung it down.

I'd seen a lot of crazy shit in my life before then. I had. Whether I remembered it all or not. But this, what happened next, was new-level crazy. This was insane.

The walkers were mowed down like grass, sliced into a million by the steel cable between the speeding cars. Legs and arms and heads went flying. Blood sprayed into the air like sprinklers, made shadows in the sky.

Finally, Dad and Michonne skidded to a stop parallel to each other just ahead of us. The cable was like a bad fence—it wouldn't hold all of them but it would hold enough. Dad and Michonne were out. Michonne was further away but she got to the van faster. Dad was mobbed for a few seconds. He twisted and turned and fought his way through, and when he hit the door, he flipped it open and collapsed inside the van. The walkers slammed the door shut and Oliver hit the gas.

For a few seconds, the car was full of revving and panting. We were sweating. My body was thrumming. But we did it. _We did it._ We got away and it was ov—

The highway exploded.

We'd gotten far away but the van still shuddered against the shockwave. I felt my body flinch. I watched the sky turn to fire. It made a mushroom cloud. The smoke bubbled up through the air and drifted through the breeze, and as it did, Rosita, in the passenger seat, shook her head.

"Yeah, I didn't like the look of that shit at all."

Oliver was shaking so hard I could see his hook opening and closing on accident against the wheel. From behind, I squeezed his shoulders and kissed his ear, then saw his face through the mirror crumple up into a grin. He was wrecked. I slapped his shoulders a few times and he laughed and nodded to me.

"I pushed it." Dad was groaning. "I pushed it."

Michonne rubbed his shoulder and buried her face in his neck. She was grinning too. "We're here," she told him. "You can smile. We made it. We can make it. We can. We're the ones who _live_."

I let go of Oliver's shoulders and looked at him through the rear-view mirror. Breathless, he glanced at me too. He laughed and shook his head.

"Seriously, man, when you told me about the Big Bang, this was _not_ what I had in mind."

I laughed. Laughed so hard my eyes watered and I doubled forward.

Dad patted my back.

"Where are Sasha and Jesus?" Tara asked. She was putting the left over dynamite sticks in the back, bent over the far seats.

"They're going to Hilltop," Michonne answered. "They're gonna tell Maggie we're not giving up."

Oliver looked at Dad for a second. "Hey," he said, "does this mean you're an old man now?"

For some reason this made Dad laugh, hard. I didn't know why it was so funny but I laughed, too. Laughed and laughed. We laughed our asses off. I'd never laughed like that with my father before. Finally, Dad stopped and just said, "Eyes on the road, son."

Rosita changed gear for him.

Oliver was still grinning. "Yes, sir."

* * *

 **Notes**

The Terminator reference tho... Also, exactly a month and a day ago, I looked into the sun the same way Carl did... I've still got a blind spot in my right eye. I'm an idiot.

Next one up next month.

As always,  
Happy reading (.


	46. Rock in the Road, Part 5: My Best Friend

**RHatch89** thanks!

 **DampishPoet** Thanks, dude! Also yeah, it was a bad life decision...

 **FriendlyNeighborhoodHufflepuff** Thank you! It still surprises me that people are still starting this fic and reading it all the way through xD

 _Personal note:_ FUCK! I MET LUCY CHRISTOPHER! Remember back in chapter 20, when Oliver went home to put down his parents? I put in notes that the chapter was inspired by Stolen, one of my favourite books, written... by... LUcY... CHrisTOpER! She's a fucking lecturer at my uni! (yes I know that's basically telling you where I study but this is ImpOrTAnT) I fucking died! She read part of the book to us! She let me take a photo with her (I mean, I forgot how to smile; honestly, the photo is so bad but so gooodddd she's so perfect) agh she was so spectacular and ifdbghcdehyfdhjufdsjkkjf

Also, holy shit, Gail, use your words, with your mouth, not just your damn keyboard.

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

Tobin met us as we marched in through the gate.

"Lose the car?" he asked.

"It's somewhere safe."

"And Oliver?"

"Him, too."

"You didn't find anything?"

"No. Listen, we need to get everyone ready—"

Dad stopped and turned because it was already too late. The Saviors were coming; their truck and motorbike engines growling behind us on the road. We all stood back as they drove inside and parked by the solar panels.

Simon stepped out of the truck to greet us. "Rick! Hello." He bowed to me. " _And..._ hello again."

"We thought it'd be longer," Dad said.

"Do you think we're here for a tribute? Do you?"

"Is there another reason?"

"There is. We're here for Daryl."

"Negan took Daryl."

"Oh..." Simon squirmed and pointed at me. "But then your son showed up, Daryl went missing – might those two things be connected?"

"They're not. We didn't know he was gone 'till right now."

"Then this should be easy." I wanted to swipe that ugly grin off his face. Wanted so bad I put my hands in my pockets as not to. "Now, everyone find a buddy. Gonna have to follow us around. If he's here, we really need you all to see him die."

Simon passed me and did that hat-flick thing again.

I watched him walk away.

They searched every house, every room, every corner. Inside the eagle truck. Inside the sewers. My heart stopped for a second when they checked around the paddock. I could see Roan's saddle, the scratched-in tiger symbol on the right fender, but none of them noticed it.

The pantry was empty.

Inside, Simon whistled.

"Wow. These are some bare shelving units."

It was difficult to act like this wasn't a shock for all of us.

"You guys have a barbecue or something and not invite us?" he asked. " _Seriously,_ this is sad. Hope you're not trying to hide stuff from us, 'cause that generally doesn't go over very well."

"We have a lot of people," Aaron said nonchalantly. His bruising hadn't gone down much. "It's getting harder to find stuff, and our focus lately has been on finding things that Negan might want. We're still adjusting to the new system."

"We were gonna scavenge more today," Dad said. "If you just wait, we'll bring something back. We'll find more."

Simon _Aww_ ed at him.

I was using my stink-eye again. Guess Simon thought it was funny because he laughed. He looked at Dad and leant against the shelf.

" _Relax!_ " he cheered. _"_ I'm not here for a pick-up. Good thing. But that day is coming, so you best do whatever you need to. Dig deep. Go the extra mile." He slapped the empty shelf. "Take some _risks!_ "

"We will," Michonne said.

"Well _we_ will appreciate that."

We left the pantry. I tried to ask Dad where the food was but he shot the question down with one look. My head hadn't stopped reeling yet.

The Saviors were leaving.

"Thank you for the cooperation, Rick," Simon said. "My apologies for leaving the place a bit of a mess, but we got a litany of other _shit_ to attend to! So do you, I guess. Tick-tock. Chop-chop."

 _Ta, ta..._

"Oh! And, Rick, if Daryl does turn up here. Two days from now. Two months from now. Hell, two years from now. Just know there's no statute of limitations on this. Keep that hatchet handy. You're gonna need it if he turns up with you people." Simon's grin dropped. "And it won't turn out the way it did for your boy."

The gate shut behind them and we listened to the engines fade away.

"What happened to the pantry?" Dad asked immediately.

"We don't know," Aaron said. "And we need to talk about Gabriel."

"Where is he?"

"He was on watch," Tobin said, "the night you all went to... scavenge. I was supposed to take over for him in the morning. He wasn't at his post."

"Pantry was cleared out and a car was gone," Aaron explained.

"No one's seen him since," Eric said.

Rosita scoffed. "That sonovabitch! He stole our shit and ran."

"That's... what it looks like," Tobin admitted.

It didn't make sense. Gabriel wouldn't, would he? I wondered if maybe seeing Olivia and Spencer die in front of him might have flipped him over the edge. Except no—Gabriel found his courage, and he wouldn't lose it for that.

"I don't want to believe it," Michonne said.

"I _don't_ believe it," Dad growled. "That's not Gabriel. He wouldn't do that to us."

"I thought he changed, too, but it can't be _anything_ else," Rosita said.

Dad looked at her, and then he walked away...

"Yes it can."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

I'd found a comfortable seat on the roof of the van. Around me, the forest was alive. It was watching me. Thing is, I was watching it, too. I was watching its branches and its moss and its ivy and its insects. I listened to the trees talk and the wind sing and the ground grumble.

Suddenly, a big bird threw itself out of a tree and flew right over my head into the forest. I watched as leaves fell in its wake; some landed on the roof. I picked them up with my prosthetic and dropped them over the side—I was nailing it, except I'd let go a little early sometimes and I'd have to try again.

 _I'll work on it._

A twig snapped not far away. I didn't see anything but I heard another snap a second later. Something. _Crunch, crunch, crunch._ Someone. I stood up, aimed my Thunder.

"Not one more step, dickhead, or I blow your brains – oh."

Scab stepped out from behind a tree.

I lowered my gun.

Scab rubbed against the tree trunk, a bushy, matted tail flicking left to right. I grinned and holstered my gun. Scab jumped up onto the hood and strolled up across the windscreen to me, purring away. We sat for a while in quiet; purring and petting and watching the forest. And this was how Carl and Eric found me.

I made this useless attempt to climb off of the van and walk over before Eric could see what was inside, but before I even put a leg over the side, he held up a hand and said, "Save it. I already know."

"Oh," I said. "Cool."

Eric didn't look convinced.

"You found Scab," Carl said.

"She was missing?"

"Freezer incident."

"Freezer incident?"

"Saviours."

"Oh. Poor baby."

I'd never called anybody that, let alone a cat. Carl bit back a snort and said, "She?"

"She," I affirmed. They both looked sceptical so I picked her up and showed them her belly. It was wriggling. Guess it was hard to tell through how thick her fur was. "She's pregnant."

Eric grinned.

Carl looked put off. "Thought we were just overfeeding him."

"Her," I corrected, and put Scab down when she started thrashing.

"Right," Carl said. "Her."

He tried to pet her but she hissed and ran away. Carl sighed.

"Must've been older than I thought when I found her," I said. "She still looks pretty small, but I read somewhere that a cat's growth can get stunted if they're malnutritioned enough."

Carl nodded. For a few seconds, he and Eric were both just standing there not saying anything, so finally, I addressed the elephant in the room—in the _forest._

"What happened?"

"Gabriel was kidnapped."

"We don't know who took him. But they took all our food, too."

"Saviors?"

"No. Someone else. Gabe left a message. _'Boat'._ "

"Some of the others went to rescue him."

"Who?"

"Aaron," Eric said, sour. "Rick, Michonne, Tara, Sasha and Rosita." He gritted his teeth, then stopped and squinted up at me. "Come on, we should head back."

"Eric?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Can we stay out here for a little while, me and Carl?"

Eric looked at us apprehensively.

"Please?"

Carl wasn't saying anything. His arms were folded and he leaned against the van door. I guess Eric trusted us. Or I guess he was just tired and missed Aaron, because he sighed. He did this strange head-bobbing thing and waved an arm—Eric did that when he was thinking things over.

"Alright," he said, "but it's gonna be dark soon. Come home before then."

I nodded.

Eric pointed. " _Before_ then."

"Yessir."

Eric nodded, then he turned and walked away. I watched him, and when he was gone, I backed up to stand beside Carl against the door. He was looking at the ground.

I wasn't sure why I asked for us to stay behind. I guess I knew Carl was stressed, even if he hadn't said so. And I knew we weren't going to do anything that was much fun. I figured he might just want to talk things out, so I started at the obvious:

"Think there'll be a fight?"

"I don't know."

"Are you afraid?"

He nodded.

"Me, too," I said.

The quiet outside our heads was filled with the forest, all alive and humming and rustling in the air, but inside our heads was chaos.

Carl sighed. It shuddered. "You can't go," he whispered. "Not with everything happening. We need you."

I dipped my head, and then I looked at him. He didn't look at me. He shut his eye.

" _I_ need you."

Carl had never said that to me before. Not like that. Not like he really _really_ believed it.

I shook my head. I said, "You're gonna be fine, man." And I must've sounded kind of irritated because he looked at me in this crazy intense way like he might burst into tears or hit me.

"No," he said, like it was a beg or a bargain. "If we're gonna die, we're gonna die, right?"

I frowned at him.

"This is... This is..." The right word got lost inside his head and then he threw his head back and groaned, "I don't know!"

 _I don't know,_ I thought too. _Hell, who knew anything anymore?_

He was pacing. He rubbed his face and turned to me, face-to-face. "You can shave. You can take off your glasses. You can put on a beanie again. They won't recognise you."

"Carl," I whispered, "I have one hand."

He sank inside. I saw it. God, it was awful.

"And a _huge_ under-bite," I added.

Carl pushed me with his chest, only he didn't pull back again, so we pressed together and I put my forehead on his shoulder. His hands were in his pockets. He put them in my pockets instead. My hand was behind my back and my prosthetic was by my side. We were hugging without arms, I guess. And I guess I kind of liked it. Felt nice. Calm. Balanced.

"I wanna stay here," Carl whispered.

I looked into his eyes and imagined I was swimming in them—backstroke, front stroke, dive, _plunge..._ I wasn't even sure I knew _how_ to swim. Not very well, at least.

"If we go back, it'll be real," he whispered.

"Okay," I said, even though it wasn't okay. Gabriel was missing. There was no food or guns or weapons left. The Saviors were coming back soon. They had Eugene. Noah and Heath were _still_ gone. And I had to go away again.

"I don't want it to be real," Carl told me, "not yet."

"Okay."

"Okay."

So none of it was real. Not for a little while longer. We laid on the van roof and drew our names into each other's backs. And then, finally, as close to sundown as we could make it, Carl and I went home.

The others got back almost the same time we did. Gabriel was among them; a little worse for wear, but well. Rick had a bloody hand that Tara was bandaging up in the clinic. He said he'd gotten a nail through it. Carl was horrified. After some explanation, it turned out that the group who took Gabriel had let him go, returned our food too, and furthermore, made allies with us.

On one condition.

We get them guns.

"Rick and I'll go out looking tomorrow," Michonne said.

"How long will you be gone?" Carl asked.

"Two days."

"Maybe more," Rick added, giving Michonne a wink that I don't think he meant for me to notice.

Carl, who hadn't noticed, nodded to them, then took my hand. "Come on," he said.

"Night, boys."

"Night."

"Night."

* * *

 _'Cause I bit my lip until it bled  
But I kinda wish that I bit yours instead_

 _I spilled blood on my ex-boyfriend's shirt  
And I hope that I won't ever make you hurt_

 _The way that I once told you that he did  
They way that I can't help remember him_

 _Said I loved you and I've never meant it more  
But despite it all I'm always feeling bored_

 _I'd do anything to feel comfortable again..._

 _That night, I dreamed of the snow. I dreamed I was doing target practice with my Thunder 9 in the snow. And I guess I sort of knew I was dreaming because I'd had this dream all the time. Except I was alone this time. I looked around to be sure. Yes. Alone. Except for him —Carl— standing in place of the target. Only this time I noticed him. This time, I put down my Thunder, and there came no lightning...and then we weren't in the snow anymore, Carl and I. We were inside the van. And we were making love inside the van. And I really really liked it. It was rough and hard and manic. We were triggering the explosives. Catching fire to the sticks. And I got this feeling like maybe I didn't care if the whole vehicle blew up, that I only cared that it was just me and him and it was the best feeling in the universe._

 _...kapow..._

I remember jolting awake. My ears were ringing and my body felt all light and floaty, all of a sudden, like that feeling right after sex. I knew what had just happened. I was out of breath and drenched in sweat and— _oh._ I looked over at Carl. I hoped I hadn't woken him but I had. He was staring at me like he wasn't sure how to react. I'd never had a wet dream in front of him before. Not ever.

"What was that?" he asked me.

"Nothing," I said. I pushed my sweaty hair out of my face and swallowed. "Uh... nothing, man."

"Did..." He had this look on his face. Shit, he knew. "Did you just..."

"Yeah," I cut him off, "yeah, I did, okay?"

Carl snorted. "Okay."

My face was burning. "I should take a cold shower," I said.

"Don't bother."

He sat up and pulled off his T-shirt, then reached over and pulled off mine—I tried not to jump to conclusions. He was laughing under his breath. I felt embarrassed and a little soggy.

"You were talking in your sleep," Carl told me.

"What did I say?"

"Well, you weren't really talking," Carl said. "Just kinda... whimpering."

I shoved him and he laughed at me, and then I was starting to think it might've worked for him because Carl was looking at me in that way, like he wanted to kiss me, so I smiled and then leaned over and kissed him.

"Oliver?" he mumbled.

I pulled back and propped myself up on my elbow. The room was dark, and I wasn't wearing my glasses so I couldn't see very well.

"I gotta ask you somethin'," he said.

I nodded. "Okay, shoot."

Carl looked right at me. "Is it goodbye? Is... Is the next few days gonna be goodbye?"

I was quiet for a while. I could feel my face twist up into a frown. "You think that I'm gonna go back there and... and..." Carl was just looking at me. I didn't want to finish my sentence, and I didn't want it to sound like an accusation, so I just sighed and laid back.

We both didn't speak for a few minutes.

"You were right," I confessed finally, "at the Kingdom. I was moping around. I mean, I was helping with the pick-ups, trying to make Carol happy... but, when I was on my own, when it'd get bad, in my head." I sighed. Words were difficult. "I don't know. I can make it go away sometimes, but sometimes... I just can't. That's when I'd do that stuff. Fool around with those girls. Esme. Joey. It—it was never _just_ wanting somebody. I mean, it was... but it was never _them._ Not really. It just... I... I don't know."

Carl stared at me.

"Does that... make any sense?" I asked. "I get it, if it doesn't. I—"

"I've only ever been with you," he said, blurting it a little. "Nobody's ever gonna make me feel the way you do."

I looked at him, and then I looked away. I wanted to say I was sorry. I wanted to tell him that nobody had ever made me feel the way he did either, because it was true. I loved him more than I'd ever loved anything. But I didn't say anything.

"Do you want it to be goodbye?" he asked me. He _actually_ asked me that. And him asking me that hurt. Him asking me that felt like I'd been hit by an oncoming train.

I looked at him. I couldn't speak. I thought that maybe he was asking because _he_ wanted it to be a goodbye, and I wasn't sure I could hear that. I wasn't sure I could hear anything. I wasn't sure I could even hear my own voice, so I went on saying nothing. I hated myself for it. My silence. I was trapped inside it and I couldn't get out, so in the end, Carl had to break it...

"Do you ever think that... that we were only together because we were the only kids around?"

My chin was shaking. I had to wipe my eyes.

"You were my best friend," I said. I wanted to tell him that he still was. My best friend. I wanted to tell him that I could hardly believe that he existed sometimes, him who got shot twice, him who looked at deer and thought of beauty and happiness and safety, him who put other people's lives before his own and could never ignore a cry for help. He could see the whole universe in people's eyes, in _mine_ , and I wanted to tell him that I was never going to be the same after knowing him, and that somehow, even though it was him who lost his memory, it felt more like it was _me_ who'd been remembering all of that. I wanted to tell him. _I wanted to tell him._ But like always, the words were lost inside my head and I just looked at him and said again, "You were my best friend."

I saw a tear. It caught the moonlight and ran a track across his face, wetting his scar, so I leaned over and kissed it away. Carl curled up to my chest. He pulled my arms around him and I pulled my knees up between his. He kissed me, and I kissed him back.

"It's you," I whispered into him after a while. "It's so you."

He pulled back. "Are you mocking me?"

"Totally, man."

"You little shit."

"Totally."

We laughed. His laugh was the sort of laugh that was sad and relieved and happy all at once. Yeah. _That_ sort of laugh. I think I had the same sort of laugh, too, because when I touched our laughs they fitted together and it felt so good. And then this odd idea came into my head to bite his bottom lip so I did.

Carl grunted and froze.

"Sorry," I said, "I... I don't know why I did that." I'd never done it before—not like that, at least; biting was a kind of weird subject for us.

Carl stared at me, and then he laughed.

"It's okay," he said. "Kinda liked it."

"Should... Should I do it again?"

Carl laughed and kissed me, so I did do it again and he pulled me closer, and then, when I reached down and touched him, Carl shuddered. And gasped. Gasped. And gasped again. I kept quiet. I kept listening to the small sounds he was making—these tiny crazy sounds. He looked into my eyes a lot, even when I'd kiss him, and I remember thinking that that was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my whole life, so I climbed under the sheets. I held him and held him and held him, and then he was all shudders and grunts until he was suddenly very still and calm again... Carl didn't speak. He just caught his breath and I pushed up and looked at him. He looked at me, too, looked and looked and played with my hair, until he started falling asleep.

I kissed between his eyebrows. I pulled him close.

We both laid in quiet for a while.

"It's not goodbye," I said. "I swear."

Carl wrapped his arms around me and whispered, "I believe you," into my ear, and then sleep carried us away again.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Comfortable_ by Lontalius. "Comfortable" by Lontalius. Thanks andytweed/CodeName A.N.D.Y

We're well overdue for some good old fluff, so expect that and almost nothing else for the next few.

Also, just putting it out there, once I (hopefully) get through this year of uni, I plan to upload all the stories/scripts/blah blahs I wrote during the year over on fictionpress; just in case any of you were curious about my original stuff: aka. stuff I plan to be the sort of thing I actually publish one day. I would have done it sooner but uni is suuuper strict on plagiarism, even if it's self-plagiarism. I figured I was already reusing enough of my adapted fanfiction to pass classes I haated writing for that I didn't want to risk getting into trouble for it any more. But yeah, once I'm done for the summer, I can share. Whoop!

Thanks for reading, next chapter up 1st July :)

As always,  
Happy reading.


	47. Say Yes, Part 1: Four Days

**RHatch89** Thanks!

 **The Sorrowful Deity** yes, they are xD

 **The Flash Fanatic** They're flattered ^.^

 _Personal note: I think it's gonna be okay :)_

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

There were four days.

Four awesome days.

 _Day one,_

and Oliver and I were driving.

We'd asked to go while Dad and Michonne were loading the eagle truck for their run the same morning.

"Why?"

"More eyes out there looking for guns the better, right?"

"Sure, I guess."

"These parts are pretty dry. That's why your dad and I are going out so far."

"Yeah."

"Yeah, but, what if something was left behind? Wouldn't hurt to let us try, would it?"

Dad thought about it. Michonne, too. They looked at each other. Then they looked at us.

"Back by sundown, deal?"

"Deal."  
"Deal."

"Be good."

"Will."

I had this weird exciting feeling that we were lying.

"So, where are we going _really?_ " I asked Oliver in the car. I had my feet up on the dashboard, shoulders hunched and Wolverine hovering in front of my face.

"What?" Oliver asked.

I put the comic down and gave him a look. Without looking back, Oliver smirked. He rubbed the bristles on his chin, a toothpick in his mouth; said it was to distract him from wanting to smoke. Pretty sure he just thought he looked cool.

"C'mon," I insisted. "You said west. This is _south_. You're up to something—I know it."

Oliver waved his prosthetic indifferently.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

The morning sun was behind his head, made all his edges glow, the light catching small hairs on his neck and chin and forearms.

"Remember that school I mentioned to your dad," Oliver said, "remember? On the way back along the highway?"

I nodded. Without looking at me, Oliver took the pick out of his mouth with his prosthetic, smirked, then put it back in.

I wound down a window—too hot.

"That's where," Oliver continued, cool air blowing hair around his face. He had goose-bumps. "It's a school of art."

I perked up. "Like, for painting and stuff?"

"Guess. Not sure. Roan and I rode through pretty fast. I only caught a glimpse. It looked pretty cool inside though, through the windows. Could be a few guard dogs but we'll take care of them."

"Alright."

"You worried?"

"No."

He spent a minute driving, and after a minute he said to me, "What are you thinking?"

I was thinking about paint. About acrylics. _Real_ paint. I was thinking about the last time I saw some. It was at the Andersons' about nine months before. Jessie painted; I vaguely remembered that she was always working on something – something drying along the skirt-boards or sitting unfinished in the garage or on the easel. There wasn't a lot of her paint left after the herd came. Yeah. I was thinking that. And I was thinking of all the cool things somebody could do with paint, but I just looked at Oliver and said, "Puddin'."

Oliver laughed. I think he knew I was pumped for this. I think he knew I was so excited that I didn't know what to do with myself. Surly silence was my equivalent of jumping for joy—I tried not to think about it.

Oliver drove with his prosthetic, reaching his hand across the dashboard to hand me the CD from the stereo. It was Ronny Dee's _'Live at the Continental Club'._ He asked me to find something else to play from the CDs under my seat. I picked _'Awesome Mix: Volume 6'_ that Oliver'd made for me on Deanna's laptop last summer.

Oliver examined it when I handed it to him.

He blushed, and then he put it in the stereo.

The first song came on. It was Johnny Cash's, _It's All Over,_ and Oliver skipped it. The next song was Boston's, _More than a Feeling,_ and Oliver tutted and skipped that, too.

I frowned at him.

He finally stopped skipping on this one song. Oliver told me it was his mom's favourite song. It was called _Al Di Là_. Most of the song was in English but I remember hearing Oliver sing it under his breath in Italian.

I got real quiet while I listened.

I looked out of my window and watched the sun flicker through the trees as we drove. I watched the country hills roll under the morning sky. And I felt the gentle hum of the car engine underneath me, and Oliver and the song floating through all of everything.

 _'Al di là del bene piu prezioso, ci sei tu.  
Al di là, del sogno piu ambizioso, ci sei tu.  
Where you walk flowers bloom.  
When you smile all the gloom turns to sunshine.  
And my heart opens wide.  
When you're gone it fades inside and seems to have died._

 _Al di là, I wondered as I drifted where you were.  
Al di là, the fog around me lifted, there you were.  
In the kiss that I gave was the love I had saved for a lifetime.  
Then I knew all of you was completely mine.'_

Oliver was pulling up into this long driveway, a stone fence either side almost all the way down to the school. We were in the outskirts of a small town, rural, with yellow and purple flowers scattered all across the track and fences.

Oliver parked in the courtyard.

"Doesn't look much like a school," I pointed out, squinting through my wound-down window. There was a lake in the distance behind some trees. I listened for a second and only heard water and birds and crickets. On the left was a tall building with a glass roof and big windows. Vines growing everywhere. Across the courtyard, which had a small dried up pond in the middle, was another building that looked like a normal house, except it was burned down.

"It's one of those studio places," Oliver explained. "Private classes, all that."

"Oh," I said. I felt my insides starting to buzz. I could see through dirty windows into the studio. There were paintings I couldn't quite make out hung up everywhere along walls. There was another floor, like an office, with a balcony overlooking the ground floor which was littered with wooden easels and desks and tables and chairs. A big chandelier hung in the far end over an armchair, and the ceiling was lined with big grey pipes.

I stepped out of the car and took my gun, felt the gravel cracking under my boots. I heard Oliver shut the car door across from me, cocking his own gun. We looked at each other, then moved in, and within ten minutes we had the whole place searched. There wasn't any food. There was a rifle in the burned house, but all the bullets had been destroyed in the fire.

We found this one walker tied to the base of a tree down nearer the lake. She had a pistol beside her, just out of her reach.

"What do you think happened?"

Oliver shrugged and kept watching her. As he drove his knife through her forehead, he said, "Someone probably left it for her."

"And tied her up?"

"Maybe she asked for it," he said. "Maybe she was dangerous. Maybe whoever tied her up just forgot to take it."

I took her gun. It had one bullet in the chamber.

"It's something," I said, handing the gun up to him. Oliver stowed it in the back of his jeans while I looted her body. Inside her purse was a letter:

 _'_ _Any crayon,  
even the most broken,  
has the potential to make  
a masterpiece._ _'_

Oliver's eyebrows came up as he read it too.

He squinted at the corpse, then, without saying anything, turned and headed back towards the studio. I followed, letting the letter blow away in the wind.

I caught up to Oliver.

"What do you wanna do?"

"Screw," he said, "...violently."

I considered it. Oliver shoved me.

"You hungry?"

"Little," I said.

"Well, I didn't bring food."

I looked at him. "Why'd you ask if I was hungry then?"

Oliver shrugged.

"Now I am hungry," I complained.

Oliver found that funny. He said, "Maybe we _should_ screw, you know, to take our minds off it."

I turned to the lake, and then I turned to Oliver...

"Come with me," I said, "I have an idea."

* * *

Half an hour later, I was crouched at the lake edge with Oliver sitting cross-legged beside me. We were staring into the water.

"So, how long do we have to do this for?"

"A little longer," I whispered. "Just wait."

He did, for a little longer.

"This place reminds me of this old lake cabin my grandparents owned in South Carolina," he said after that little longer. "After they died, Dad would take us all up there for a few weeks every summer."

I didn't say anything because I didn't need to. Oliver seemed to be talking just to be talking, which was a new development for him. Maybe he was uncomfortable. Maybe he was tired of looking at water. Maybe he just really really wanted to screw me.

"You swim?" I asked.

"Nah."

"You didn't like the lake?"

"I liked the lake," he said. "I just didn't like the minnows."

I gave him a look.

"What?" Oliver asked. "They're like water spiders, but fish."

I laughed.

"You know that's a thing, right? Water spiders. They exist."

Oliver sat there and thought about that for a few seconds, and then his whole body shivered and he pushed his glasses up to rub his eyes. I snickered. Oliver pushed me for it, and I was going to push him back. I was going to ask him if he knew how to swim at all, but—

"Whoa. There!"

"Where?" Oliver leaned over, squinted, then realised his glasses were still on top of his head and pulled them down. "I don't see anything."

"They're there," I assured him. "Yeah. Being shy, staying under. Little shits know what's up." I stood up and pulled off my shoes and socks and flannel shirt, until I was just in my jeans and T-shirt. I rolled up my jean legs and waded into the water, making a big circle before I was standing ten or so feet from the shore.

"The hell are you doing, man?"

"You stay th-there," I called out. It was so cold I was shivering. I cursed under my breath before I could get my voice out properly again. "Alright, listen, we're gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way." It was only then that I realised I was talking to Oliver through a memory. But for once, I didn't mind... "You're the key in all this, okay?"

Oliver nodded eagerly, just like I did two years ago when Shane asked me the same question.

"I'm gonna go in, all right, scare them, rile them up. They're all gonna scatter. I'll drive them your way, alright?" Oliver was laughing. I was, too. "What you need to do is you need to round up every bad boy you see, all right, Oliver? Are you ready for this?"

"Yeah!"

"Put on your _mean_ face!"

Oliver laughed.

"The fuck is _that?!_ "

"Come on, your _mean_ face!" I yelled, and then I growled. "ARRRGGGH!"

Oliver laughed hysterically and growled back... _loud_.

" _GRRRR!_ "

"That's it, that's it! Alright. You ready?"

"YEAH!"

"Here we go!"

I meant to splash my arms, but immediately I tripped on a root and all of me plunged under the water. The cold bit me everywhere. I lost all my breath and thrashed around in every direction, felt my heart in my throat and my laughter choked in my mouth and nose. When I came up for air, I could hear Oliver laughing like a maniac. He was swinging his net around under the water ahead of him, so hysterical he wasn't even looking at where it was going. His eyes were on me, and then I threw all sensibility to the wind and dove under the water again. I kicked up as much dirt as I could, splashing and thrashing and yelling until I was out of breath again.

I was cheering him on while he struggled and jerked his arms, doing his best with his prosthetic, both our laughter rippling across the lake.

"Catch them frogs! Catch them, man!" I cried. "What did you get? What did you get?!"

He rose the net and I waited for the _"dirt..."_ but several tiny green faces wriggled from inside the mesh and a grin exploded across my expression.

"OLIVER, _YES!_ "

" _WHOOHOO!_ "

I waded towards him as fast as I could.

"WHO'S YOUR MAN?!" he said.

My hair whipped around my face. I pointed at him with both my hands and yelled, "YOU ARE!"

"THAT'S FUCKING _RIGHT!_ " He tipped his head back and howled like a wolf. " _Owooo!_ " and then I crashed into him, tackling him at full soggy speed and we both hit the ground with a thump. Oliver laughed. "Dude, you're freezing!"

I kissed him. And kissed him. And I kissed him. "You're a lucky charm," I said. And I kissed him again and again and again. "You're the luckiest guy I know."

He grinned. His face was speckled in dirt and water. It was like my freckles had fallen off on him. I kissed him again, and then I felt something cold and wet land on the back of my leg. It happened again so I looked. Oliver, too, and he yelped.

" _Eugh!_ "

"Oh, shit, the frogs!"

"Get them!"

We scrambled after the escapees. Two got away but the other one that got out was quickly grabbed by Oliver. "Take it!" he yelled, flailing the frog around inside his palm. "Takeittakeittakeit!" I did, replacing it in the net. Oliver was so grossed out that he was jumping on the spot. He washed his hand in the water.

"We caught six," I said, struggling my clothes back on. "That's awesome."

Oliver kissed me. He pushed his fingers through my soaked hair, then pulled some of it back. He had an elastic band in his pocket—it was a spare for if the one around his hook ever snapped. With help from his prosthetic, he tied half of my hair up behind my head in a small bun so that the bottom half of my hair hung down over my shoulders. A few stray strands blew in front of my ears and over my forehead and eyes, so he brushed them back. I felt like I must've looked dumb but Oliver seemed to like it. He kissed me again.

"Come on," he said, "we should go see if we can start a fire. Dry off and cook up these bad boys."

"Okay."

* * *

We'd managed to get a fire going in a small trash can in the studio. We drank water we'd boiled from the lake, and some more from the bottles we'd brought with us from home. The frogs cooked pretty easy too, and they tasted okay and were enough to stop us feeling too hungry. The only problem, we'd attracted some 'guard dogs' with all the screaming earlier at the lake. Luckily, we'd seen them coming, so while the cluster shambled through the trees, Oliver and I hid in the studio and covered up and locked all the windows and doors.

If we were going to get home before sundown, we'd need to leave soon. But we couldn't do much with the walkers still hanging out in the courtyard, so I got to killing time.

I was painting.

The chill from the lake had lingered all day, but the fire behind the desk kept us comfortable.

I was standing in front of an easel. Oliver, my model, was sitting on the armchair opposite me, knees up to his chest and a blanket over his shoulders. He looked small and like he was focussing on something, listening for any bad noises outside. The worst we'd hear was a sharp bump on the window or something breaking from inside the burned house across. Sometimes Oliver would remind himself that I was there. He'd call me Jack and say things like, "To the stars," or, "I want you to paint me like one of your French girls."—apparently it's some reference to an old romance movie about a ship or something. As was, "I believe you are blushing, Mr. Big Artiste."

It was hard not to find him funny. It was hard not to laugh.

"I'm not," I insisted.

"I should take my clothes off, _then_ you'll blush."

"No."

"Why not?"

"You'll catch pneumonia. Plus, there's about thirty geeks out there waiting to get their hands on us. What if we have to run?"

He just shrugged. "Worth it."

"You're such a tool, Oliver."

He shrugged again and grinned. "Alright, whatever you say, Jack. Tell me what you want."

"I want you," I whispered, eyeing up the blank canvas. I was measuring out in my head where Oliver would go on it. This process usually took a while. "I want you exactly the way you are, right now, right there. Everything's perfect."

"Talking like the _real_ Mr. Big Artiste."

"That's not a real person."

Oliver snorted, then looked at me through his eyelashes and tilted his head, tugging the corner of his shirt collar and slipping it over his shoulder. I looked at him past the canvas. I took in the olive of his skin. I felt my face blush—it wasn't hard not to laugh anymore, but instead just hard in general...

Then there was a bump at the window and it made us startle.

We waited a second. As more seconds passed and nothing else happened, I turned back to the canvas and got to making Oliver's skin tone, mixing yellow, red and white, and a tiny bit of blue. Then my brush touched canvas. I stroked, stroked again, and again. And again. And then I was into it. _Really_ into it. Into it like I didn't ever get into anything I was making unless I was totally alone. After a while it felt like I _was_ alone. I felt like I felt in my bedroom, hunched over my pillow, scribbling my imagination into oblivion. Every brush stroke felt like breathing. Every colour made my chest swell. I looked at Oliver in front of me, breathing and watching me, and then I looked at him _in front of me,_ paused inside this perfect moment but not quite done yet, not quite there...until he _was_. Right there in front of me, finally.

I was seeing double.

I wanted to spin on the spot and scream. I was so happy. But the walkers were still outside and Oliver was still looking at me and I didn't want to embarrass myself, so I left the canvas to dry and got to cleaning up.

"Their numbers are dying down out there," Oliver said, peeking through a gap in the curtain. "Can't see any from here."

"Cool," I said.

"The car's close. We might still make it home before sundown if we go now."

I looked at him.

"We're meant to be back," he said.

"Jack _crap_ if you were planning on getting back tonight in the first place."

He chuckled. "What are you talking about, man?"

I rolled my eyes. "You know." He did. "Just one night won't hurt," I said. "It'll probably be safer anyway. C'mon, this is the most fun I've had in forever."

Oliver tried to supress his smile. He put his mouth close to mine and whispered, "Tell it to the frogs."

I rolled my eyes, turned away, and put my hands in the sink. It took me a few tries to realise that the water wasn't running, so I did what I could to clean the brushes with the jar of water I'd poured from one of our bottles. And then Oliver was stepping up behind me. He put his chin on my shoulder and hummed the tune of _Al Di Là_ from earlier.

"What is it?" I asked. "What's _al de là_?"

Oliver kissed my forehead.

He said, "It's hard to translate. Sometimes there isn't really the right word for it in English. But, it kinda means... really far. Farther than farther. More than more. _Beyond._ It's supposed to be how much he's in love with who the song's written for."

I smirked. It sounded cliché and dumb and I loved it.

"What?" Oliver said. He looked nervous. I knew he was going to get defensive, so I just turned away and kept cleaning. Oliver waited a second, and then he leant into me, his chest pressed to my back.

He took a breath...

 _"Where you walk flowers bloom.  
When you smile all the gloom turns to sunshine.  
And my heart opens wide.  
When you're gone it fades inside and seems to have died."_

"No, no," I whispered. Oliver rolled his eyes as I turned around and looked at him. As charismatically as I could, I asked, "Can you do it the way you do, in Italian?"

He was just looking at me. And I think I bit my lip because he looked at my mouth. I remember that his cheeks flushed. Think mine did too. And then Oliver hugged me and pulled me to slow dance while he sang.

 _"Al di là, del mare piu profondo, ci sei tu.  
Al di là, del limiti del mondo, ci sei tu.  
Al di là, della volta infinita, al di là della vita.  
Ci sei tu, al di là, ci sei tu per me._ _"_

I just kept on looking at him. Right at him. I knew what he was thinking because I was thinking it to. Three words. Three stupid crazy words. _I love you._ He was going to tell me it, too, but I saw his chin shake, heard the catch in his breath, and I thought of the morning at the Kingdom, when he'd cried. He was crying again, and at first I didn't know why but then I understood. I understood everything. I understood why Oliver was sad and I understood what he was afraid of. He was afraid of me. Of losing me.

I held him, and then I kissed him. He kissed me, too. His hand came up to my face—but something wet smeared over my skin.

"What the..."

"Oh, _dude._ My bad."

He must've put his hand in the paint behind me in the sink on accident. It was on his fingers—and my face, apparently.

He took my hand, painting it blue and red, and I jerked it away and tried to wipe it off. Oliver laughed, and then I brought my hand up and ran my thumb over his bottom lip, colouring it violet. Oliver grimaced and pulled back, but I leaned forward and kissed him, and then he found some more paint from the mess in the sink behind me and pushed his hand under my shirt and wiped magenta across my chest. The cold made me gasp. I looked under my clothes and paint was everywhere. And then in a swell of revenge I grabbed some green and then seized his shirt, smearing my hands all the way up over his shoulders. He did it back, and somehow all of this dissolved into a wrestling match.

He had me in a headlock but I knocked his feet out from under him, and to stop him staggering to his knees, he grabbed me again. An empty easel was knocked over. A desk scraped. The nets we'd used earlier toppled over and clattered to the floor and then at some point Oliver lost his balance and his back hit a cupboard. I got to thinking about paint again, all the things I could do with it, so I grabbed more from their cartridges, blues and oranges and yellows and pinks, and I splattered them all over him.

"Dude!"

"That's what you get!"

Oliver pulled off my shirt and I grabbed him and pulled him down. And then he was on his back. Our lips crashed and crushed and he started unbuckling his belt. Paint was drying under my palms, between my fingers. Oliver yanked his jeans off one leg and just as I struggled my belt and zipper undone, he pulled me into him right then and there. I shuddered. I was sweating and gasping and holding onto him. I felt blind. Blinded by colour. My eyes filled with _redorangeyellowgreenblueindigoviolet_ only it was him and all of his _imaginary_. Oliver showed me _al di l_ _à_ that night. Farther than the farther. More than more. _Beyond_. And all I could think was that we were both the crayon _and_ the masterpiece after all, like thunder and lightning; never one without the other.

* * *

 _Day two,_

and I woke up with Oliver curled up in my arms. Around us, the studio looked like the Avengers had spent all night having rough group-sex together. Colour everywhere. It looked like a rainbow tornado had blitzed through the whole building. Even the painting I'd made the night before had a messy burgundy handprint smeared right through the middle. It was kind of awesome. And in any case, I didn't plan to take it home with me anyway. I did take a few art supplies though; brushes, chalks, paints, and one of those small drawing mannequins.

We packed the rest of our things and washed what we could of ourselves in the lake. Mostly just our faces and hands. Our clothes were ruined, but we didn't mind. We got in our car—I drove this time—and went back home.

Aaron let us in through the gate. Rosita was up on the guard post, shaking her head. They met us as we parked and got out.

They took in the state of us.

"Back by sundown?" Aaron said.

"My ass," Rosita took over. She pointed a gloved knuckle at our faces. "You little punks planned this, didn't you?"

"It was my fault," Oliver said. "We were gonna come home earlier but some geeks showed up, so we hid overnight." He didn't say that we were also totally okay with all this though, furthermore that I'd encouraged the decision.

"Find anything?" Aaron asked.

Oliver reached into the car and presented the pistol and rifle proudly.

"Yep."

Rosita pulled a sarcastic smile and took them. She checked the ammo.

" _One_ bullet? That's it?"

"Hey, it's something," Oliver defended.

Aaron smirked and shook his head, then nodded, and then Rosita pointed a finger at me and said, "If your father finds out you guys spent the night, it's on you. I'm _not_ taking the blame."

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

She gritted her teeth.

"You look like a pair of pride flags," Aaron said.

We tried not to grin too much.

"Where's Judy?" Oliver asked.

"Home."

We headed there with our stuff. Judith was awake in her crib and started yelling as soon as she heard our voices. She clung around Oliver's neck so tightly that he could let go of her and she wouldn't fall. Once we washed, Oliver put Judith on his back and piggied her all the way to Roan's pasture to do chores, and later that evening Tara came by and invited us to supper at the clinic. We had spaghettios. After, Oliver played the parts of _Für Elise_ that Denise had taught him on her piano, which didn't really sound like _Für Elise_ very much since it was only the left-hand part, but it was nice. Oliver had his eyes shut while he played. He'd never say so, but I knew he was imagining her there, Denise, playing the missing notes alongside him. I wished I could see her, too. I wished I could see people who were gone like Oliver could.

Oliver and I went back home after dark. We put Judith to bed, and Oliver got this idea to turn out all the lights in the house. He put on Dad's _Dave Brubeck_ album and skipped to the song _Take Five_ and we laid under the dining room table with a blanket and a flashlight, shoulder-to-shoulder, hand-in-hand, listening to the music. Oliver made up his own bad lyrics to go with the tune. _"I love you more than air. Your skin, so soft so fair."_ I had to cover his mouth when he sang stuff like: _"The stars are in your eyes, let me lie between your thighs."_ And even worse: _"I can't ever use my Glock again, but at least I have your—"_ Yeah. Bad lyrics like _that._ To distract him, I shone the flashlight at the underside of the table. The light looked like the shapes in an iris. We looked and looked and looked, and then we drifted away and became imaginary again, like always.

 _Day three,_

and not much happened that day. Oliver and I woke up, we had sex, we looked after Judith, did chores, hung out... and had sex again. Oliver fell asleep for a while after so I took Judy for a walk in her pram to get her to nap again. Rosita was leaving to look for more guns—said all she'd found so far was a BB gun that she almost died for.

Judith and I sat by the lake. I taught her to throw rocks in. She wasn't very good. A few times I had to catch the rocks before they flew back and hit us.

Judith stopped and stared at something across the lake. I looked.

"Whoa..."

It was a—

"Hey, Carl?"

I jumped and saw Eric walking by. "Hey," I said. I looked back at what I'd seen, but it was gone. I figured it was in my head. "Er—How's it going?"

Eric shrugged. "Aaron's making meatloaf and potato salad for supper. Jell-O, too. Wanna join?"

I had this hunch that the grown-ups were taking turns to look after us, since Oliver and I were living alone until Dad and Michonne got back. They were due back some time that day. But it was late and I was trying not to get worried about them, so I didn't mention any of that. I just nodded and said, "Uh, yeah. Thanks. I'll go get Oliver."

"Okay, better come quick. We eat dessert first."

"Why?"

"Why not?" Eric said. "Never know what your last meal's gonna be, might as well make sure you get the best bits first."

I thought that was strange. I also thought that was genius.

Eric walked away. I hurried back home with Judith. We found Oliver in the same place I'd left him; naked in my bed with one leg above the covers and his face smushed against the pillow.

I put Judith on the rug and knelt by his side and sang.

 _"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.  
You make me happy when skies are grey.  
You'll never know, dear, how much I—"_

"I thought you didn't like that song anymore," Oliver mumbled.

I frowned. "Never said I didn't like it."

Oliver looked at me. He yawned. "Sup?"

"Gotta get dressed," I answered, finding his clothes. "We're headed to Aaron and Eric's for supper."

"Your parents aren't home?" he asked.

I looked at him. People were calling them that now and it didn't bother me nearly as much as I kept reminding myself it should. In fact, it didn't bother me at all. I got this feeling like my mom would be happy about that, proud that I wasn't letting the world spoil me, that I was doing what I had to do but I was also still her sweet, sweet boy, maybe.

I kissed Oliver's forehead.

"Not yet," I answered. "Come on, before the Jell-O's gone."

 _Day four,_

and we spent most of our time doing chores. Around lunch, while Oliver was demonstrating a few tricks on his skateboard to me near the lake as I dug into my tinned maceral, something caught my eye ahead us.

I stood up immediately.

It was the deer; what I saw the day before. She was young and timid, peeking past Roan's paddock at us. I felt my face smile. When Oliver noticed I was staring, he looked too and was so shocked he fell from his board.

Startled, the doe froze and stared at us. Oliver and I stared back. Slowly, I stepped closer to him to help him up. He took my hand. His was bleeding.

"We should shoot her," I said.

Oliver didn't say anything.

"We... We shouldn't shoot her," I said. Out the corner of my eye, I saw Oliver smile in this really small way. Ignoring the smile, I told him, "I saw her yesterday."

"Yeah?" Oliver whispered.

"Yeah."

"How'd she get in?"

I shrugged and mumbled, "Thought it was in my head."

Someone shut a door in the distance and the doe bolted. We watched her go. Then Oliver grabbed my hand and we ran after her to the front gates. Gabriel was there, opening them. It all happened at the same time: The eagle truck returned home, and the doe flew over the hood and galloped away from Alexandria.

Michonne hit the brakes hard.

She and Dad looked at each other from inside, like they couldn't believe what they'd just seen, and then Michonne shook her confusion off and parked the truck outside the armoury. We greeted them. Nobody really talked about the deer. The truck was full of guns and food. Which was good, but it didn't quite feel that way. Oliver and I didn't speak. We just looked at each other. He tried to smile but I didn't believe it. We both knew that the last four days we'd fallen in love with were just another memory now.

The deer was a sign.  
The deer was a reminder.  
Like it always was:  
Something good was over.

And it was time for Oliver to leave again.

"Tomorrow morning," Dad said.

Yeah, okay...  
Tomorrow morning.

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

They brought back sixty-three guns in total. Most were machine guns, big ones. Army shit. _Good_ shit. To seal the deal, Rick and the others would deliver them in the evening to the Junkies.

Junkies. I know.

Thing was, they _lived_ in a junkyard, and had no name for themselves, so Carl and I'd been brainstorming for a few days. We thought maybe the Heapsters, which was good, as was the Scavengers. But Junkies kind of just stuck.

It was like a _game_ , giving them names, finding their shit. Rick seemed to think so too because he'd been smiling about it for hours. I liked that. It made it fun. It made coping a little easier. Only, whenever I saw the look on Carl's face, I was reminded that he didn't like thinking of everything like a game at all.

For the most part, I figured I'd grown out of that dumb voice in my head. It was too unreliable and short tempered, made me do things I didn't want to do. But it was still there sometimes. And this time it told me: **_Of course. The youngest of you all turns out to be the most mature._** I ignored it.

In preparation for the delivery, I'd been helping Tara all afternoon in making a gun inventory out by the truck.

Scab was sitting on the armoury windowsill, watching us. Her belly was so big she looked ready to go into labour any second. She'd been sleeping in my old room, curled up in a nest she'd made in my bed. I didn't sleep there anymore as I slept at Carl's. Regardless, we were sure my bed was where she was going to birth and raise her kittens, furthermore that she'd chosen that room because it must have smelled similar to where she, herself, had been born. It was a nice thought—that a pregnant mongrel cat with a crooked tail and two missing claws could be sentimental.

Tara handed me a gun and I got to cleaning it.

"It's good they found these," I said to her when I was done, rubbing dirt off my hook and hand onto my jeans. "Now you don't have to tell them about Oceanside."

Tara looked at me.

"Yeah," I said, cocking an eyebrow, "I know about that."

Oceanside: where Tara was for all that time.  
Oceanside: a hidden community of women and children only.  
Oceanside: whose fathers and sons and brothers were all murdered by the Saviours.  
Oceanside: who also happened to have enough guns for an entire army, and _then_ some.

She stuttered. "H—How..."

I shrugged. "Overheard you talking to Judy this morning. You know she's only two, right? She isn't a qualified therapist yet— _ow!_ " Tara punched me in the shoulder. "Alright, alright! _I'm kidding._ Sheesh!"

"Oliver, you _can't_ tell anybody."

"I haven't," I said, whispering. "I _won't_. Promise."

Tara just nodded and leant against the eagle truck door, dipping her head and rubbing her eyes. She was all tense and stiff—that happens when you hide a whole community from your own family; I could empathise.

"But I think _you_ should," I told her.

Tara sighed and looked at her feet. "I know. I know."

I just smiled, and then I reached out and touched the tattoo on her wrist with my fingertips. It was several tattoos, really; tiny Roman numerals like a list. I'd never asked what they meant, and I guess I didn't plan to—I figured tattoos were like bruises, or scars; you didn't need to ask people why, just as long as _they_ knew why.

"Where'd your bracelet go?" I asked.

"Oh. Gave it to Judith," Tara said.

I looked at the accessory tied around my own wrist, Lizzie tangled with Mika, and pressed them to my lips. I could ever give it away.

Tara put the last machine gun inside the back of the eagle truck, and then Rick, Michonne, Gabriel and Rosita left the armoury.

"Good luck," I told them.

"Thanks."

Scab followed me as I walked home. Carl was waiting on the roof.

Scab, so heavily pregnant, didn't climb up the gutter like she usually would. She just went inside through the open front door and came out through Rick and Michonne's room to greet Carl on the edge a minute or so later. She was oddly affectionate. We figured it was a mixture of not seeing us for four days and maternal hormones kicking in.

Carl petted her.

I was still just stood in front of the house, looking up at him.

The sun was behind his head and he was just a black silhouette against a gold and pink evening sky. He looked like an angel. It was stupid by now, but I still felt a lump in my throat just by looking at him sometimes.

"They gone?" he asked me.

I squinted and nodded. I couldn't see his face, just the breeze; breathing inside his hair in that _way_ of his, like he was in one of those fancy hair commercials on TV in the old days— _'Because you're worth it..._ '

I became a boy-sigh with a heartbeat.

Scratch before. Carl _was_ an angel, and the sun and moon were his wings, I swore it; a wingspan so colossal you'd rarely see both at the same time.

"Carl?" I said.

"Yeah," he said back.

"I'm gonna ask your dad if I can stay at Hilltop."

Carl thought about that for a second, and then he nodded and said, "Okay."

We were quiet for a while, just looking at each other and listening to the air and the birds and the crickets and Scab's purring. I could hear the faint growl of a walker on the other side of the wall; we ignored it.

Carl tilted his head. "You coming?"

I frowned. "Are _you?_ "

"That a sex joke?"

"It was more of a proposal."

Carl shook his head and grinned at me, and then he got up, leaving Scab sitting on the edge, and stepped through his parents' bedroom window.

"Bathroom," he said. "Bring the candle, oh, and your lube."

"It's aloe lotion."

Carl leaned back out the window and threw his hands up. "Bring it all! Come on."

I inhaled.

"Okay, man."

* * *

A half-hour later, the sun had set and the bathroom was lit up in a soft glow from the candle I'd put over on the sink. The bathtub was full, and inside it, I was rested along Carl's front, hugged in all of him.

We were tired, all calm and quiet and warm. He was stroking my hair back and I had my cheek on his chest, eyes shut, breath steady. Every few moments I'd touch his spine with my fingertips. I don't know why. I guess it sort of felt like I was reassuring him that I was still there, or maybe I was reassuring myself.

There were suds in the ends of his hair, which was so long he had to comb it all back with his fingers in order to bathe without it hanging in his face, and it ran down his back if he tipped his head far enough. My own hair was getting kind of long again; didn't touch my neck or shoulders at all but it hung over my eyes and cheeks when wet, but I didn't mind. I'd started to like it.

At some point, I lifted my head and kissed Carl's sternum. He put his fingers through my fringe, and then I pushed myself up a little and kissed his cheek. I made a swirly shape in the hair there with my lips, then tugged.

Carl laugh-grunted and jerked away.

"You need to shave," I told him.

"You do, too."

"My chest's getting kind of hairy now," I said, arching my back to show him. "See?"

"I like it."

I thought about only twenty or so minutes earlier, how he'd buried his whole face against my chest while we were squashed and writhing and the tub filled up around us. That was Carl's thing when he was with me; a lot of pressing and burying and I'd just hold him and hold him and hold him.

We decided to shave each other, taking it in turns. Me first. I sat completely still while Carl lathered my face in cream and used his father's blade to shave me. He was careful and gentle and precise. I imagined myself like a blank canvas, and Carl was the artist, like the other day. We didn't speak. And when it was his turn I tried to be as careful and gentle and precise as he was. I guessed I did it right because he kept his eye closed the whole time.

In the candle light, Carl was so crazily beautiful, even his scars, and that lump in my throat hadn't gone away.

When I was finished, I set the blade on the shelf with the cream. Carl didn't open his eye. He just dunked his face under the water and rinsed. I was crying, and I knew he could hear me, but he still didn't look at me and I was glad.

He sat up in front of me and kept his hands over his face, pressed there while the water trickled through his fingers.

"Don't cry."

"Okay."

"Please, don't cry anymore."

"Okay. Okay."

We were whispering. I knew that if we talked normally we'd be able to hear our voices break. But it still didn't help. I saw his face fold up, and then he started crying really hard. He sank his whole head under the water and screamed.

I put my hand on his shoulder-blade and rubbed circles into his back. I stopped crying and wished I could stop time too, just stay in that moment forever, but I couldn't do that, so instead I pulled him up before he ran out of air. Carl looked right at me. I couldn't tell if his face was covered in tears or just water. But I could. I knew. And I hugged him.

Water splashed but we didn't care. We hugged and hugged and hugged until we matched each other's breaths and heartbeats, and finally, somehow, all the crying went away again.

* * *

Later, the others had come back with twenty guns, which wasn't the plan. They explained that Jadis, the Junkies' leader, wanted more, that sixty-three wasn't enough, that they needed double that. Tara very carefully didn't look at me when this was all explained.

Still, it wasn't time to think about that.

"Supper's ready."

Carl and I had made pizza. _Real_ pizza, from some dough mix from Hilltop and chilli sauce and dried toppings from the packeted stuff Rick and Michonne brought back. Okay, fine, _weird_ pizza. But _real_ weird pizza. After the feast, Tara, Gabriel, Aaron, Eric and Rosita all went home, Judith was sleeping upstairs in her room, and it was just me, Carl, Rick and Michonne around the table, snacking on leftovers. Yeah. _Leftovers._ Rick and Michonne brought _that_ much back with them. They even let Carl and I have a beer each. Or maybe two or three... or six. Rick said, "You're men. You should be able to drink with your elders." And I knew he only said the word _elders_ because he didn't want to exclude me by saying _father_ , and I loved him for that.

I really really did.

I didn't bring up Hilltop. The night was nice. It was perfect. Everybody was laughing and joking, mostly about me for some reason, and I didn't want to change anything. I wanted the night to last and last and last. I wanted Judith to keep whispering to Patty Catty through the baby-monitor. I wanted Michonne to keep drinking her beer and telling the story _again_ of how she and Daryl met me; the conversation with myself, the M&M's, the awkward silence and the politeness. _Beware of escaping Hitchhikers._ And I wanted Rick to keep laughing, with his hand on my shoulder and his cheeks all bunched up and full of pizza crust and beer.

But then something happened in my head.

Reality woke me up.

And I realised...

 ** _They're saying goodbye._**

Rick took his hand off my shoulder to drink, giggling under his breath. I prodded a half-eaten crust and tried to keep laughing too. But that sad was back again, out of nowhere—no, out of _everywhere_. Even with all the laughter and the jokes and the pizza and the drink, the house was miserable and everybody knew it. Thing was, it was _me_ making it like that.

I was making the whole house sad.

Michonne was looking at me. Carl must've noticed that because he looked at me too, then touched my knee under the table. I reached across and took his hand, then brought it up and put the inside of his wrist against my mouth. Carl let me do that for a minute, and then I let go and looked at his father.

"Rick?"

He turned to me. "Hmm."

"Tomorrow," I said, "can I go to hilltop?"

He stopped smiling slowly, watching me, his eyes all wrinkled up.

"Kingdom and Hilltop are allies," I said, like I'd rehearsed in my head for days, "and the Saviors know that already. It's not as far to ride on my own and if I'm at Hilltop instead, I can help in the fight. I can and I will and I want to."

Rick looked at Michonne and they talked for a while inside their heads.

"Simon and his crew do pick-ups there, they could recognise you."

"Simon was there the night of the line up," I answered. "He could recognise Maggie and Sasha, too. But they haven't been caught."

Rick sighed. But he wasn't saying no.

"What about Roan?" Michonne asked. "They'll recognise him. One ear and all."

"There's a tiger scratched in on the saddle," Carl said too.

I sighed. I'd thought of this.

"I'll let him loose," I said. Saying it hurt more than I'd anticipated. "He's done his bit for me. He hates being cooped up anyway."

"Gregory's not gonna like it," Michonne told me after a pause. "You being there."

"Maggie will," I said, "Sasha. Jesus. Enid."

Rick still wasn't saying no.

"Say yes," I said. "Rick, say yes, please?"

He watched me for a moment, and then he pulled my head forward and kissed the top of it firmly and gently in his _way_.

And then he said it.

He said yes.

* * *

 **Notes**

That _Al De La_ song was by Jerry Vale, I think.

 _Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe_ inspired this entire chapter :3

Somehow Oliver's hair has become a symbol of his responsibilities? How he let it grow out, how he got to love and care for more and more people – then chopped it all off, blocked them all out – and now his hair is growing back again, and so is his family. Look, I'm lame—I thought of this on the bus on my way to uni and smiled so much a girl saw me in the window reflection and thought I was flirting with her...

Next chapter up in two weeks.

P.S. I'm on Instagram **_gaillikestoswim_** and Tumblr **notmuchmoretosay**.

New stories over on FictionPress. Link in my profile bio :)

As always,  
Happy reading.


	48. Say Yes, Part 2: I Did Not Cry

**DampishPoet** and **RHatch89** and **Hongo En** and **FriendlyNeighbourhoodHufflepuff** and **This Sorrowful Deity** : holy shit guys, thank you so much. I really didn't know how much faith I had in the last one, it being like complete fluff, so thanks a bunch for the kind words. Your support means a lot to me.

 _Personal Note: "To T or not to T, that is the question."  
...tbh, Gail, you already know the answer._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

It'd gone midnight by the time Carl and I snuck out through the living room window and walked across the community to the gazebo. It was cold out, so we had a blanket. Our teeth were chattering.

"Got everything?" Carl asked me.

I held up the packet of papers and the small tin Benjamin gave me. Carl grinned. He reached into his pocket and took out Daryl's lighter—must've found it somewhere.

"You sure about this?" I asked. "You tripped pretty hard first time."

"You'll take care of me."

I loved how confident he sounded. I loved it and I was afraid of it.

"Alright." I laid everything out and took a deep breath. "You gotta roll it."

"Roll what?"

"The joint."

"You haven't even made it yet."

I looked at him. And then I laughed. " _Roll—_ roll, like, _roll._ "

Carl frowned, then caught on. "Oh!"

I was still laughing.

"Why can't you do it?"

"A insufficient amount of limbs," I answered, raising my amp—I'd left my hook in his room.

"But I don't know how."

"I'll talk you through it," I said, "help you out where I can."

Carl sighed apprehensively, then opened the tin. The smell was fresh and strong and reminded me of the Kingdom. Carl said he kind of liked the smell. I didn't, but I liked the way it was going to make me feel.

"There's enough in here for a few," I observed. "Do you want one each, or should we just make one and share it?"

Carl shrugged.

"One, for now," I decided.

I took a paper, then gave him another and told him to fold it up real small for a filter. Carl didn't know what a filter was so I explained. He made one. I held it in place on the paper and was careful the breeze couldn't blow it away. I showed him how to set up the tobacco, then how to grind the herb. He almost dropped it, but didn't—I gave him this crazy look and he blew out through his mouth a few times in relief. He was more careful as he continued to follow my instruction though. I only knew what I did from watching Jerry and Benjamin, so it took several tries for us to get everything set up.

The rolling was hard. We almost gave up, but Carl finally managed to pick up this trick with his thumb and pinkie, and we had a joint. It was a little spacey and crinkled, but it was good enough. Carl still decided to make another one. He packed it a little more and was more careful, and I rolled my eyes at how proud of himself he was when he finished even though it was a lot better than the first one.

"You go first," he said, handing over the first joint he'd made. He was nervous.

I kissed his cheek.

I smoked two tokes before handing over. Carl smoked slowly. He coughed a lot this time. I figured it was because of the tobacco. I guess because it was just me and him, and because he was in a place he knew and trusted, he was calmer than last time. And after a few minutes the paleness in his face went away and he didn't get self-conscious. He just smoked and smoked and then he laughed. I did, too.

By the time we were finishing the second joint together, we were laid back along the bench, squashed, staring up at the stars that we could see past the roof. I remember thinking we were part of them, the stars. I remember taking off my shoes and socks and looking at my toes and thinking I was shining. I remember laughing so hard into Carl's chest that I thought we'd both floated up into the night-sky and turned into comets together. We were going to soar right across the universe.

Carl would be quiet for long periods of time, and when I'd remember where we were, I'd reach over and pat his chest to make sure he hadn't wondered off into the nebula without me. And then I'd just keep my hand there for a while. On his chest. I loved the way he breathed. I loved the way his heartbeat felt. The way he blinked and the way he smiled and the way he _existed_.

"Why're you smilin' at me like that?" he said.

I got insecure about my underbite and shook my head, mumbling something, and then at some point a million lightyears later, we started talking about names. He told me his favourite name was Judith. I said my favourite was Patrick—guess we were a little biased.

A weird noise came out of him.

"What?" I asked, poking his hand. In my head, I asked it if I could borrow it, and then out loud, I said, "I only have one."

"Me too," Carl said.

I looked at him.

"Eye," Carl said, and I sighed.

"You're beautiful."

"You're beautiful," he retorted.

I laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

"We can loan each other," I said. "An eye for a hand."

Carl just grinned.

A while passed. Or it felt a while. Counting seconds was like counting stars. Too many to count or none at all, hidden in either light or cloud—I couldn't tell which.

"Imagine... Imagine you answering to Patrick," Carl said.

I bust out laughing into my hand.

"You wear his glasses," he said, "it's like you're turning into him. Turning into Patrick. _Patrizio Abel De Luca._ " He'd said it with an Italian accent and I remember looking at him like he was the most incredible thing in all infinite dimensions and he was.

" _Bravissimo!_ " I laughed.

" _Grazi uomo,_ " he said back. I laughed again. I'd been speaking Italian a lot around him lately. He'd been picking up whole sentences just from listening. Carl hugged my arm and laughed too. He said, "Ohhoo..." but that wasn't Italian so I laughed even harder, and then he just smiled at me for a while, until finally, he told me, "I'm not losing you, but I can still lose _you_." And saying that made him frown. He looked at the roof of the gazebo and whispered, "I can't lose you."

I kissed him. And then I stopped.

Carl just smiled real big at me.

"I'm Oliver," I told him.

"You are," he said. " _Oliver Fabiano De Luca._ " Again, with the accent.

"Fabiano's what my mom wanted to call me," I giggled. I think I might have repeated myself a few times because Carl said it, too. He said, "Yeah, yeah, what your mom wanted to call you," so I eventually said, "But she chose Pat's first name, even though he used the English translation. Dad... Dad wanted one of us to have his first name."

We went quiet.

I briefly wondered if Carl understood what I'd just told him. He was frowning like he was thinking about it, and then he looked at me suddenly and said, "Wait, your dad's name was..."

I smirked.

"Your name—You're... You're Oliver, Jr."

I scoffed.

Carl said it several more times, like it was the epiphany of the century: _Oliver, Jr. Oliver, Jr. Oliver, Jr._

"You never told me that."

I shrugged and grinned.

"You never told anybody, did you?"

Another shrug.

Carl gave me this look, like: _maybe you should quit doing that_. But all he said was, "Daddy issues."

I laughed and jostled him and he had to grab my shoulder and jut out his leg as not to fall off the edge of the world. Carl laughed hard, and then settled and grinned at me.

"Fine," he said. "You're Oliver. Just Oliver."

"I am." I looked at the sky and cried, " _I am, I am, I am, I am!_ " and we both cracked up laughing again, doubled over, laughed so hard we ran out of our breath. And then we were quiet for what felt like a life time. I hated _my_ quiet, but when it was _our_ quiet, I loved it. I loved our quiet so much. I felt so at home inside of it, like I never needed to be anywhere else and for a while I wasn't.

"I told Negan," Carl said somewhere in the middle of that, confessing it. "I wouldn't look at his wives. He figured I had someone to come back to, asked me for a name. I said yours. I said you were gone."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Oh."

Carl sighed. "Yeah."

We were quiet again. The floatiness in our heads made it hard to worry.

"He seemed kinda impressed," Carl snickered. "Called me mo, for homo, like it was a compliment."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Oh," I said again. And Carl was still laughing. He hadn't stopped. I thought it was because I kept saying 'oh' and then I was laughing too. I struggled, then stood up on the bench seat. It was cold and rough under my feet. I straightened my back and stretched my arms up to hold onto the roof of the gazebo with my left hand as not to fall, and then I looked at the moon and howled, " _Owooo!_ "

Carl just looked up at me like I was crazy. I was. I remember thinking I could fly. I got this idea that if I jumped off of the seat I'd soar up over the wall like Peter Pan, _find the second star to the right and fly straight on 'til morning..._ only the laughing distracted me from it. Mine and Carl's. Carl was laughing so hard he'd collapsed off the bench and was knelt on the ground when I looked, but eventually he got up again.

Carl set himself beside me, facing the other way so that as he held onto the roof, he could let his back arch and his head roll back.

I was giggling at the way he looked like one of those live-art models.

I asked, "Wait, _wives?_ "

"Six," Carl said.

"Like, _wives_ wives?"

"Wives, wives, wives. Wives. Wives, wives," he said. "Six."

"Who he kisses? Who Negan kisses—who he kisses?"

Carl had this funny look on his face where his eyebrows were hiding under his hair, like he was remembering something. He didn't share it. He just nodded a lot.

"At the same time?" I asked.

Carl looked at me, like this hadn't occurred to him. "Guess."

I didn't ask any more questions. I just thought about that for a second. I think Carl did, too. I think we were picturing all the girls we'd ever kissed or wanted to kiss. I don't know about him, but I know I pictured kissing them all at the same time too. And a part of me thought it was a cool thing to think about, so I kept on thinking about it, but then I was thinking about other things around that thought and it made me feel uncomfortable and turned-on at the same time and I wasn't sure I liked that feeling very much, or at least I definitely didn't trust it, so I decided to think about something else.

I thought about sleeping. And Roan. And how Roan slept standing up because he was a horse and that was just how they slept. He'd rest one leg and lock the remaining three so that he didn't fall over. I thought it was clever, and useful. He could run away fast if he ever needed to. Only then I got to thinking about that one horse from last year, Buttons, and how he tried to run away but died anyway. And then I got to thinking that maybe sleeping standing up wasn't so great after all, that maybe sleeping laid down was better, or at the very least that I preferred it.

And then this strange, secret thing happened in my head. I decided I was done running. I decided I was done going places just because I didn't like myself. But I didn't say any of this. I just nodded like someone had been talking to me, and I said, "I am Oliver."

Carl told me to let go of the roof and hold onto him, so I did. I thought we would fall but he kept us steady. He took my hand and used it to draw from the North Star all the way along the Little Dipper.

"I was named after my uncle," he said, "my middle name, I mean."

I squinted up at the sky, wondering how it and Carl's middle name were relevant to each other, and then I realised that they weren't and I remembered that names had just been what we were originally talking about.

"You never told me _that_ ," I mocked.

Carl scoffed.

"Uncle issues," I said.

We both bust out laughing. Laughing so hard the whole galaxy filled with it, our laughter, and in the end, I pulled his fingers away from the gazebo roof because I wanted to hold onto them, but I forgot that he needed both hands to hold us up, so he started to fall, and I started to fall too, and then we collapsed in a heap. We laughed forever and laid there in the grass and dust, grinning at the night-sky.

I let out a high-pitched, " _Whooo!_ "

Carl looked at me.

Then he didn't.

"You ever done it with someone like this?" he asked the stars. "While you were high?"

"No," I said honestly. "But I've gotten high _after_ doing it."

He grumbled something, and then he sat up and pulled off his coat. He looked at me, and as he unbuckled his belt and slid out of his jeans, he said, "Take off your clothes," so I did, bar my socks, and after a minute we were both naked and shivering and sitting on our shirts as not to catch frostbite. It was so cold. The cold felt like cuts.

He unwrapped his bandage and pulled it away from his face. All of it. I kissed it, his scar. I don't know why I liked to kiss it, I just did. I loved to. It made me think of the night I saw it happen, how crazy much I needed him and how long I had to learn to live without him and how after it all, he came back. I came back. For him. People don't own people but people can give themselves to other people. And that's what we did.

Carl's teeth were chattering. He took my hand and let me climb between his knees. We closed the gap between our chests in a bunch of shivery kisses that made me feel static, like he was some live outlet and I was the plug. He wriggled and laughed and under my arm I held his wrist down against the ground and giggled into his chest when I couldn't figure out what I was doing with my hand, and it made him laugh so hard it was difficult to get started.

"Carl," I complained, only I was laughing too, "you gotta hold still a sec."

He gasped. He said, "Your fingers are so _cold_."

I laughed so hard at that.

Finally, I could stop enough to talk. "Sorry. They'll warm up."

He grinned, and then he whispered, "Mo."

"So mo."

My brain was floating all over the place. He pressed our foreheads and I felt his too, his brain, floating up and tangling into my hair. I breathed through his mouth and looked into his eyes and felt his arms around me, and I didn't remember a lot else of that night, just that we found a lot of things really funny. I remember that. And we kissed. Kissed and kissed and kissed. And before long every name in the whole world was forgotten again.

* * *

The next morning, we woke up at home inside each other's arms, and our morning sex was sloppy and lazy and beautiful. We showered together, and then we found breakfast in the kitchen; left-overs, which wasn't much because we'd both had most of it in the night to fill our munchies.

Scab had given birth at some point. We found her curled up with eight tiny kittens attached to her belly, all blind and deaf and suckling. Three were the same dusty colour as their mother, but a little tabby. One was brown and white, another was an orange tabby, the sixth was tortoise shell, seventh, pure white, and the last was all black except for one white paw. There was a ninth kitten, dead, laying cold and blue and neglected outside of the nest. Scab must have pushed it out.

Sometimes nature was cruel.

It just was.

The dead came back to life and kittens died.

Still, turns out Carl and I were the kind of boys who buried kittens together. We buried that one by the wall and marked its grave with a small rock and a pile of daisies. We were kind of sad for a little while, and then we thought about other things.

I did my chores. I saddled up. Carl and I waited by the gate until Rick, Michonne, Tara and Aaron showed up to see me go. As they were coming, Carl slipped Daryl's lighter into my pocket, along with something else too. It was a letter, or envelope – something paper by the sounds it made.

"Don't open it until you're there," he whispered into my ear.

I nodded.

"See you," he said.

"See you," I said back.

It wasn't a big send off. Goodbye's sucked enough. Tara hugged me for minutes and minutes and minutes. She whispered to me that she was going to tell Rick about Oceanside. Her seashell bracelet was in Judith's hands, which Judith showed me herself when I held her to my chest. She told me, "Emi-Bean?" and I said, "I'll find him." Gabriel was busy giving service and Rosita was out. I didn't mind. I'd seen them as they left earlier in the morning. So I didn't cry. Not while Aaron wrapped an arm around me and Eric patted my shoulder. Not while Rick hugged me and kissed the top of my head. Not while Michonne held me around my head and made me feel like I was floating. Not even while Carl kissed me, and for the first time in almost a year, told me that he loved me, with those exact words...

"I love you."

...and I did not cry. But I did when I was outside, when the gate was closed and Roan and I were riding away. I cried so hard that after a few blocks, I had to slow him down to a walk so that I wouldn't fall. I curled up to his withers and cried. I wrapped my arms around his neck and cried. I gripped onto his mane and cried. And Roan let me cry. And cry. And cry. As hard as my body could bear it.

* * *

 **Notes**

Last spring I used the smoking scene for one of the 500 word pieces in my Prose class, you'll now find it over on FictionPress, link in my profile's bio. The story's called _Into the Nebula_ xD

As always,  
Happy reading (.


	49. The Other Side, Part 1: Refuge

**RHatch89** thankyou!

 **The Sorrowful Deity** I'm so honoured xD

 **DampishPoet** because I'm paranoid about boring you!

 _Personal note: I'm moving somewhere that doesn't feel like home yet, but it will. And anyway, it's never really the where you live, it's with who. So that's kinda comforting._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

After letting Roan loose and dumping his tack in a creek, I arrived at Hilltop on foot in the evening. It must've been getting late; the guard on duty'd fallen asleep. He was slim and his skin was pale brown, with a shaven face and short dark hair that stuck up like hedgehog spikes. I sort of just waited for a few minutes awkwardly while he snored away against the shaft of his spear. I couldn't yell. So, eventually, I just picked up a clump of hard dirt and flung it up at him.

It hit him square in the chest.

He grunted and collapsed. I didn't see him when he said, " _Whattheshit?_ " but I saw him when he got up. He looked around, saw me, then scrambled for his spear and aimed it at me. "Stay back!"

"It's alright," I said, arms up. "I am no foe. Neither am I the dead." After all that time I'd gotten used to Kingdom soldier idiolect, even without a horse under me—I knocked it off and cleared my throat. "I'm, uh, a friend, of Maggie's. My name's Oliver."

He didn't say anything.

I didn't either.

Then he was done not saying things and told me, "You were here a few days ago." I nodded. "What do you want, kid?"

"Refuge... sir."

"Well we're not taking anybody in. You'll have to find somewhere else. Leave, now, before — M—Miss. Rhee?" He was looking behind him, and then he was helping Maggie up onto the watch deck. I smiled—I smiled so widely my face ached. She leant over the wall and squinted at me, and then she smiled too.

"It's okay, Kal," she said. "Open the gate."

* * *

I explained everything to Maggie and Jesus and Sasha, and Daryl—who'd managed to stay at the Kingdom for a total of one night before he marched right out of the gate and came to Hilltop. His reasons for this weren't disclosed, but I had my hunches. No time to clarify though. My news of a larger group possibly helping in the fight against the Saviors was turning everybody hopeful and chatty.

I wasn't really up to much chatting though. So, after a while, the others went back to the trailer and Maggie took me to see Glenn and Abraham's graves.

We sat for a while. I'd not gotten to see them. I'd not gotten to say goodbye. Not for the whole five weeks since they'd been murdered. Not until then. I didn't cry. I just... _sat_. There were deflated green balloons on Abraham's grave, smooth rocks and green flowers on both.

And Maggie just held my hand.

She was starting to show this tiny bit. Her baby-bump was small, but just visible under her vest. She looked beautiful. Really. More beautiful than she already was. People said pregnant women glowed, and it was true. Not _glow_ like in movies but glow like from the inside, like you could only see it if you just shut your eyes and sat and held her hand, and then you could just _feel_ the glowing from inside her, spreading through you like air. And she had this soft smile on the corner of her mouth that made me think of my mother. I wondered if all pregnant people had that smile.

"Gregory's all talk," she told me after a while. "He won't want you here when he finds out, but you can stay as long as you like."

I don't know why, but I wanted to cry. Maybe that was a pregnancy thing, too, that you cried in front of pregnant people. Or maybe I was just sad.

When the tears started to fall, I wiped them away and tried to pretend they weren't there, but I thought about Glenn and I thought about Abraham and I thought about Noah and more and more names and I missed them all so much and I knew Maggie did too, worse, and I couldn't stand that. I couldn't stand that sad.

Maggie was looking at me.

I put my chin on my kneecap and pointed at my ankles feebly.

"I cuff my jeans," I sniffed stupidly. "Like he did." And then Maggie held me. I didn't let her see me cry, and she didn't let me see her cry either, but we both knew it was there, that hurt. We could feel it.

And  
there  
was  
 _so_  
much.

Maggie took me to a small trailer. It had blue flowers outside, and inside it smelled of apples and pastry and chalk, and also musk, like too many people lived in it, and they did. There was Daryl, Sasha, Enid, Bean, Jesus and Maggie, and now me, too.

While the others slept, bar Daryl, who was outside, sitting quietly tending to a new crossbow, Maggie showed me to where I was going to sleep, which was on the floor beside Enid who was on a make-shift couch-bed; Maggie said she'd had a busy day at target practice so I figured I'd not wake her—even Bean was quiet while he greeted me.

I set my stuff down, said goodnight to Maggie, who was curling up in bed across the room, and dressed into the pyjamas she gave me. They were Jesus' and they fit almost perfectly.

Maggie was asleep by the time I remembered the letter Carl wrote me, and since I was at Hilltop, by instruction, I reached for my jacket pocket and took out the letter. It was a folded piece of paper and I held it up to the moonlight coming in through the window. I had to use my glasses to read the note on the back:

 _OLIVER_

 _THE FOLLOWING SKETCH IS INSPIRED BY  
PAUL-_ _É_ _LIE RANSON_ _'_ _S, THE BLUE ROOM_

 _PS. THIS TOOK A LOT MORE TIME IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR THAN I WILL EVER BE COMFORTABLE WITH.  
YOU OWE ME MAN._

 _YOURS SEMPITERNALLY  
CARL._

I unfolded the paper and immediately had to hold back something like a gasp-grunt-laugh. Bean, who I was using as a pillow, lifted his head and sniffed at me. I petted him and he settled again.

I looked back at the sketch.

Carl Grimes had drawn himself. No, really... he'd drawn _himself,_ for _me._

"Whoa..."

I was ecstatic. I'd never gotten a 'nude' before but from what I knew, this was the closest I was ever going to get. It made me laugh so much I had to stifle it into my wrist. I looked at the drawing for a while longer, and probably a little while longer than that. It was crazy accurate. Crazy good. And yes, okay, fine, crazy sexy too— _completely_. All along the bottom was a note in really tiny writing...

 _C. J. GRIMES_ _#_ _SELF PORTRAIT: THE SOLDIER WITHOUT HIS ARMOUR, 2013_ _#_ _PENSIL ON PAPER_ _#_ _PRIVATE COLLECTION OF OLIVER DE LUCA_ _'_ _S POCKET, VA_

I was aware of the sleeping people in the room with me, so I folded up the drawing and carefully hid it inside my jeans pocket for another time.

* * *

 _As I slept, I dreamed I was living inside Carl's drawing, sitting nude with him by the lake at home. The world was in black and white, sketched, and Carl said he wanted the clouds to go away so that the sun could shine, so together we rubbed out the overcast. We laughed and danced and kissed and felt the heat rays on our skin...but then the world got cold again. The pencil lines around us became dark, like they'd been drawn over too hard. They'd dent the paper. And then a big dark figure showed up, like a hard and furious scribble. No face. No body. Just darkness and a single voice. Negan's voice. It started singing Eenie Meenie Miney Mo, and it cheered, "Turn that sleepy little burg upside down!" and behind it drug a barbed baseball bat. It left tears in the paper, and we ran, but there was nowhere to hide. Anywhere we tried was erased. Corners were blocked off. Trees were drawn too tall to climb. Doors were smudged away. Then Carl tripped, and fell through a tear in the paper. I grabbed his hand before he could plummet into the nothing. He looked so afraid, the same way he looked the moment before he lost his eye and memory. And then the figure was there. It loomed over us, pointed its bat, and sang... "You. Are. It."_

 _It swung,  
tore,  
through the paper floor,  
and Carl and I?_

 _We died._

They say that if you die in a dream you die in real life too and I thought that was true for a second when I woke up because I was sweating and drenched and I couldn't move or think so I laid there on the floor until the sleep paralysis wore off again, and I realised it was morning... and that I was alive.

 _Just a bad dream._

 _Just a bad dream._

I wished Carl was there to hold me. God, it was sappy and embarrassing but it was true. I think I hated that, too, a little. How much I needed him. How much better things were when he was just _around._ I think the idea of that, of being in love with him, was heavy on me, still. But I knew things were okay and thinking about that made me feel better.

Jesus' trailer was small and well lit. He had a big red sunhat hung on a hook and cool artsy posters up on the walls. He was into Martial Arts, and kept a lot of books about "nothing and everything" and some of them rattled if you turned them over.

Enid was asleep. Maggie was by the stove, boiling water for something. Sasha and Daryl were out somewhere, and Jesus, I'd heard the night before, was mentoring some run group before they'd head out that morning.

I held my chest and tried to calm my breathing.

Maggie saw me, and smiled; in the way mom's smile when they're worried about you. I didn't want the worry so I got up and left the trailer. Daryl was outside. He had a cigarette between his lips but his lighter wouldn't light. I reached into my pocket.

"Spare," I said. "Carl found it."

Daryl grunted in thanks and took his lighter from me. He lit his cigarette. I watched him smoke. It must have been obvious that I wanted one because Daryl looked at me, then looked at his pack.

"Y'smoke now?"

"No," I answered. "Yes... but not like you do."

Daryl snorted. "Y'ain't havin' mine."

I frowned.

"They ain't yours, not this time," he said.

"You'd tell?"

"Damn straight," he said, quiet. He was sad. I was too.

"Fine."

We were very quiet for a while. Daryl smoked his cigarette, then when it was done he flicked it off his finger into the muddy puddle under the hose faucet. He smoked another. Then another. I don't really know why I stayed there. I don't really know why I felt so mad. I thought maybe it was because he wasn't sharing, but I think it was because Daryl was mad himself. Not at me. I didn't know at what. All I knew was that just like I was making the house sad before, Daryl was making the trailer mad.

Then, in his own time a million cigarettes later, Daryl spoke.

"You knew she was there: Carol, at Kingdom."

I looked at him. I nodded.

Daryl grimaced.

"So what," he said, "you hate her now or somethin'?"

"Something."

Daryl was quiet. He chewed his thumb.

"She thinks you do," he said. "Somewhere in ya."

"That what she told you?"

"M-hm."

I didn't say anything. It was none of his business how I felt about Carol. It was none of mine, not anymore.

"She's still family," he said.

"That why you lied to her?"

Daryl looked at me.

"If you did tell her, about Glenn and Abe and everybody else, she'd be here."

Daryl really looked mad then. I think I must have too. I felt my cheeks heat up, the stupid wet in my eyes. I thought about the last time we did this together, sat on some steps smoking and not smoking and talking about Carol and family. So much had happened since then, but _nothing_ had changed.

Daryl got up and walked away. He passed Jesus, almost walked right into him, but Jesus was able to dodge and Daryl didn't even look at him. Jesus watched him go, that _way_ he watched things when he wanted to understand them, and then he looked at me like he understood me perfectly, like he didn't need to watch me because he just _knew_.

"What was that about?" he asked me.

"Nothing."

I got up and went inside. Maggie left as I did. She handed me a mug. It was hot and filled with coffee.

"Better than smoking."

I wanted to thank her, I did. But I just blushed and took the mug from her. While I laid in my make-shift bed with Bean, all bitter and upset while I stared at the rain-stained ceiling and sipped on my coffee, I listened to her and Jesus talk outside.

"Sorry for taking over your trailer," Maggie said.

"Oh, I grew up with a lot of people around. I'm used to it."

"Big family?"

"Uh... Group home," Jesus said. "This isn't like that though—bad parts at least. For the first time, I feel like I belong. Tryin'a make you and Sasha become a part of this, made _me_ a part of this. I was first here, but I was never _here_. I uh, always found it hard getting close to anyone. Neighbours, friends. Boyfriends."

They were quiet for a moment.

"You should try it sometime," Maggie said. "Even if it doesn't last." It sounded like she got up. "I'm gonna talk to our blacksmith, 'bout making more spears. Maybe we can trade with the Kingdom for some body armour. Thing is what we really need is riot gear—"

The next thing I knew, something hit me in the face and I was yelling and someone else was screaming and stumbling to the floor beside me. My coffee spilled. I picked it up, grimacing through a headache while I sat up.

"Enid!"

"Oliver?!"

"Why did you stand on me?!"

"What the hell? What the hell? _What the hell?!_ "

"Hey, hey, jeez, calm down." I groaned and held my face. The trailer door opened and sunlight poured in. I groaned again. "God, Enid, you stood right on my nose."

"Morning, guys," Jesus said.

"You okay?" Maggie asked.

"What the hell happened?" Sasha too.

Enid was hyperventilating and I was bleeding. My face was already pretty bruised up after the event in the cafeteria, so I knew it looked worse than it was. My eyes were watering and I couldn't breathe properly. Still, I was grinning. Sasha got me a rag and Enid told me to look at the floor so I didn't inhale blood. She held the back of my head.

"What are you doing here?"

"I got here last night," I said. "Figured I'd let you sleep, _thanks_ for returning the fucking favour."

I heard Jesus snicker.

Enid scowled and smacked my arm.

"You're such an asshole."

"Don't act like it's a surprise," I said, and she just looked at me, and then she started laughing really hard, and then we were hugging.

"Hi."

"Hey."

"I missed you."

"Missed you, too."

She squeezed me.

"Careful," I said, "don't let me bleed on you."

* * *

Jesus showed me to where I could wash the blood off my face by the paddocks. Enid felt pretty guilty, so she tagged along. They both filled me in on what had been happening in the last five days. Maggie's baby was growing healthy and well, and she was spending every waking moment she could making lists and developments for Hilltop; Enid said sometimes she'd fall asleep at her desk. "Maggie Rhee for president," she joked. I hadn't seen much of Daryl since that morning, but it was good to know he was around. The Hilltop people were being trained to fight too, by Sasha—Jesus told me Enid was so good at knife-throwing that she could hit a tree trunk as thin as my arm without missing. Enid blushed.

It didn't take long for my bleeding to stop, so once it did, we headed back to Jesus' trailer. Inside, Sasha startled and turned to us as we shut the door. She had a book in her hand. She snapped it shut and stuffed her pocket.

"I was... looking for something to read, the other day."

Sasha was a terrible liar. Jesus seemed to know this, too, because he smiled at her.

"You can have the bullets," he said.

Enid looked at me. We frowned at each other.

"I didn't know you had a gun," Jesus added.

"I didn't," Sasha confessed. "I do now."

"Sasha, don't go. Not yet."

She sighed and shook her head.

"Rosita didn't come here to train people," Jesus realised. "You're both going after Negan." I was confused. As Enid crossed the room, again, she looked at me and we frowned at each other. I couldn't tell by her face if she knew about all this. "You can't do that without people," Jesus said. " _A lot_ of people."

"We've talked about this," Sasha said. "I know what you think, and I appreciate that. But I'm not gonna change my mind. _She's_ not." She looked at me and Enid. We were both leant against the table, shoulder-to-shoulder, frowning our frowns. "Does Maggie know Rosita's here yet?"

Enid looked up from the floor slowly. She did that, when she was anxious; her eyelids would get all droopy like blinking was difficult, like her eyes were too heavy.

"Uh... I—I don't think so," she answered. "I didn't."

"Me neither," I said.

"You should tell her," Enid said, stepping forward. "About all of it."

"No," Sasha said. "Not yet!" She paced for a second, then calmed down. "I'm still getting ready." She pointed at her jacket and rucksack. "And the thing is, Rosita is _going._ With or without me. So it should be _with_ me."

"Then I'll go, too," Jesus said.

"Me, too," Enid and I said at the same time.

"No!" Sasha yelled. "The Hilltop has to be ready for what happens _after_. Maggie _needs_ you."

Jesus just looked at her.

"She needs you too."

"Not anymore," she said.

I didn't know how I felt about this. I was conflicted. I wanted Negan to die. And if anybody could do it, it was Sasha and Rosita. I knew they were good planners too, but the way I saw it, they weren't making any plans to get out alive.

I looked at Enid. She had that look in her eye, the same look she had that day the Wolves got in, like she wanted to get away from here. It scared me. But then she glanced at me and the look in her eye went away again.

"She has everyone else," Sasha told us. "And they have her."

Jesus stepped closer to her.

"You can stay. I know you can," he said. "But I know you won't and she won't. But I wish you would. 'Cause it's a long life, and then it isn't."

I inhaled. Enid inhaled. The whole trailer and Hilltop outside of it inhaled... except Sasha.

Sasha held her breath.

"You can take anything else you need," Jesus said, "but you and Rosita _need_ to talk to Maggie. You owe her that much." He backed up, took an apple and a lantern, and then left the trailer.

Sasha looked at me. She gave me this crap sorry look and I didn't buy it. Instead I looked at Enid. Her arms were crossed and she looked small and stern and _Enid._ Sasha sighed and walked across the room to us.

"Listen," Sasha whispered, "you have to protect her, no matter what—both of you." When she added that last part, she looked at me. I think she expected me to look away out of submission or something. If it was a month before, I would have. But this time I looked and I frowned and it took Sasha off guard because her eyes suddenly went all soft.

"She's the future of this place," Sasha said, quieter, talking to Enid now rather than me. "I know it." She touched Enid's arm, and her voice came out a little broken. "So are you." Enid wiped her face while Sasha took out a small braid of string from her pocket and handed it over. "Here. Hold on to this for me. It's for the baby. Maybe you can work on it while I'm gone."

 _Gone._ I hated that word. It was heavy, like the word _alone_ and _love_ and _family_ ; so heavy my shoulders ached. Enid's too; I could hear the weight in her voice...

"Okay."

I was mad. And I'd started to tear up. I hated how I cried when I was mad. I had to wipe my eyes quickly on my shoulders—pretending to adjust my prosthetic.

"Sasha," Enid whispered.

"Yeah."

Enid took a deep breath. "In ten minutes, I'm going to tell Maggie what's going on. It's up to you what you want to do with that... I'm doing what you asked."

She left, and Sasha was smiling after her. She stopped when she realised I wasn't going too.

"Oliver—"

"You're missing something if you think I'm going to let you go alone," I told her. Sasha sighed tiredly and stepped forward, but I didn't let her speak. "Let me go with you," I said. "Let me. Sash—"

"No."

"I can have your back. Both of you. Look, I'll follow you anyway—you know I will."

" _No,_ " she hissed again. "I know you _won't_."

I grimaced, then stepped back and scoffed. "Yeah?"

Sasha took my arm. She said to me, "Oliver, why is it so hard for you to accept that some people don't _want_ saving?"

"You're killing yourself!"

It sounded broken and weak coming out of me. Broken and weak enough that Sasha's eyes shifted between both of mine. Fast. Wet. She didn't even try to argue.

"This is it," she said. "This is goodbye."

I hated her for saying that.

It was crazy how small I felt despite being taller than her. I felt like a bug. She went up on tiptoes to kiss my forehead, and then she let go of my arm and nodded. I kept looking at the floor. I kept trying not to cry, or scream, or snatch that hollow book off the table and throw it through the mother-fucking window, so I just nodded once, then walked out of the trailer.

I was so angry, thinking the world was fucking me over and I was too scarred to take it again. I wanted someone to blame. Jesus. He'd been helping Sasha plan this, for weeks. I was going to walk up to him. Walk right up and throw my fist through his jaw. But I guessed that wasn't really fair, or realistic, so I followed Enid. She was heading to Barrington house and she was crying. That silent, secret, _Enid_ kind of crying. And all my angry turned into something else.

She heard me coming.

She wiped her face and turned to me. I just looked at her, all quiet and miserable and sad. I knew my face was wet and flushed. I was going to hug her. I was going to sit with her on the porch steps and tuck her under my arm and put my head against hers and shut my eyes for long enough that the world would melt away from us for a few minutes...

But a bell rang.

"THE SAVIORS ARE COMING!"

* * *

 **Notes**

Because even in the apocalypse, people are still sending dick pics.

Btw, you should definitely check out Ranson's _Blue Room._ It's beautiful. And since I didn't exactly want to go into detail about what Carl looked like in the drawing, I figured the reference was enough of an explanation :)

As always,  
Happy reading (.


	50. The Other Side, Part 2: Run Away

**RHatch89** Thank you!

 **DampishPoet** lul

 **Seilara** agh, ugh, thank you.

 _Personal Note: Apparently when you rent your own house, your land lord still sees it appropriate to waltz right in and look at the plumbing all while you're still half asleep and in your fucking underwear..._

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

We had to run. The escape-hatch Sasha had dug was on the other side of Hilltop and the gates were already being opened. Engines revved.

"We'll never make it in time," Maggie panted.

"Come on!" Enid powered on. She took us to the root cellar by the side of the house and yanked the doors open. "Just stay down there. I'll keep them away. They're not the same ones who came to Alexandria."

I stumbled on the third step down into the cellar and Daryl caught me by the collar before I could smash my skull through the second set of doors. I could hear Simon's voice immediately as the engines stopped.

We rushed inside the cellar, shutting the door behind us.

Daryl peeked through to the staircase while Maggie and I moved a shelving unit, full with crates, for something to hide behind.

"Daryl," Maggie whispered. " _Daryl!_ "

He relented and met us by the shelf. He had his knife drawn.

The three of us huddled into the corner of the room, hidden inside the shadows as Daryl pulled the shelving unit across to hide us.

Above us, inside the house, we heard heavy footsteps and muffled voices. They moved around a lot, and it wasn't long before we heard Enid's voice outside.

"Hi!" She was out of breath. "Uh. I've got... fresh veggies."

"Stop," a Savior said. Male. Low voice. Patronising. "They're _vegetables_. Use the _whole_ word. We have time."

"Uh, okay," Enid replied. "I have these _vegetables_ they told me to bring over. Uh, the basket's pretty heavy." She chuckled cutely. "For me, I mean. Probably not you. Uh, here! Load them in the truck, and, uh, if you meet me by the garden, I can get you the rest—"

"Stop," he said. "I don't know who you think I am, or who we are. Load them yourself. I'm busy."

Something hit the floor—I hoped for the guy's life that it wasn't Enid.

"Oh!" Enid gasped, flustered. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"Girl, pick that shit up right now and scram. And I'll take that, _now..._ Don't make me cut it off you, girl."

I bit back curses. I didn't know what the guy was talking about. Her necklace? Her bracelet? What would he want? And then I felt a hand on my wrist. Maggie's. I knew that I was angry but I didn't realise _how_ angry. Not until I saw that I was shaking with it, all that anger. My knife was in my hand. It was trembling.

The cellar door opened.

Someone came down the stairs and in through the second doors. It was the guy; tall, stocky. He had a grey beanie... and he was searching around the cellar. He took a box, then another.

Daryl was going to ambush him. He began edging towards the corner of our hidey-space. He was going to do it. He was going to. But Maggie took his arm, and he didn't.

The air was frozen, and then finally, the Savior left the cellar. When the door shut, I felt my shoulders fall a-hundred feet. The guy was gone, but Daryl still marched across the room and glared through the crack in the door like he was waiting for him to return.

Maggie sighed.

"You were gonna kill that guy."

"He was gonna find us."

"He wasn't, and he didn't."

"He deserved to die."

Maggie didn't take her eyes off him.

"Ever since you got here, you haven't said a word to me." She looked little. Little like a child. "Would you look at me? Please?"

And then I realised Daryl Dixon was crying. Really crying. I don't think I'd ever seen him cry before, not like that. Not like there was so much sad inside him that he couldn't even hold it in anymore.

"Daryl..." Maggie said.

His voice shook when he replied.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed, "I'm sorry."

Carl had told me what happened, how Daryl swung out at Negan on that night, that terrible night, and as punishment, Glenn was killed too.

"It wasn't your fault," Maggie told him.

"It was."

"No. It wasn't."

She said it to him. She said it to all of him. To his back and his front and his hair and his shoulders. His shirt and his fingernails and the mole on the left side of his face above his top lip. And he just stood there and cried.

"You're one of the good things in this world," Maggie went on. "That's what Glenn thought. And he would know, 'cause he was one of the good things, too." Her breath shuddered. "And, uh. I wanted to kill that guy, too. I wanted to string them all up and watch them die. But we have to win."

She held him like she held me last night when I was sad, like she was already a mother to everybody invited in through the Hilltop's gates. I was so proud of her. That felt weird to me, to be proud of a grown woman, to be proud of a grown _anybody_. Kids weren't meant to look at adults and think that; that they were glad they'd watched _them_ grow. But I had, and I did, and I was just standing there looking at my feet and trying not to let all that _sadproudweird_ inside of me swallow up the whole cellar.

"Help me win," Maggie whispered.

Daryl lifted his head...  
and nodded.

* * *

The Saviors had gone.

I talked to Enid. She forgot to talk to Maggie, after everything that's happened. I didn't rush her. It was hard to rush anything at Hilltop. Plus, Enid was pretty cut up. That guy? He didn't take her necklace, or her bracelet. He took her knife. Her mother's knife.

I'd been thinking for a while. I'd been thinking about the way Enid's eyes looked earlier, like she wanted to run. And I'd been thinking about Sasha, how she was planning to run soon as well. I'd been thinking and thinking and thinking, and wondering if I was wrong the other night with Carl, that I wasn't done running. Maybe there was something wrong with me, like I was some curse, and that it might have just been better if I ran, too.

Ran for what, or _from_ what, I didn't know.

Thing is, my talent was running. Had been for years. Even before the end of the world. I ran and I ran and I ran. That's how it worked. It's how I protected myself. I thought I was done having to do that, but people were letting me down again, people were saying goodbye, and the only way I knew how to make it hurt less was to let them down first.

Still, there I was, sitting inside Jesus' trailer with my rucksack on the table in front of me and my gun in my hand. It feels smooth and cold, and heavy. I clenched it, and then I relaxed. I didn't holster it. Once I did, it would mean I'd have to go. So instead I thought about Maggie. I thought about Enid. And Daryl and Sasha. Earlier, Jesus came by and set a glass vase filled with wild flowers on the table beside me, just left it there and said, "Yellow, for forgiveness," only I didn't know who he thought I needed to forgive. Him? Sasha? Carol?

I didn't know.

I didn't know anything.

 ** _How long have you been sitting here?_**

That was another thing about Hilltop. It was more than just 'hard to rush' there. Time just didn't seem to exist. I didn't know why. I started thinking about it a lot though. Sometimes I scared myself thinking I'd been there lifetimes rather than just a day. I felt crazy.

 ** _You digress..._**

I stood up. I grabbed my stuff. And I—

Somebody cursed in the distance, and screamed.

I dropped my bag, took my gun, then ran out of the trailer. When I got to the gate, a small crowd of Hilltop people had gathered. Some guy, Freddie, was wrestling with a lasso... and Roan on the other end of it.

He charged.

Freddie cursed. He dodged away and threw the rope down, and before I could do anything, Roan turned on his heel and bolted. The lasso trailed like a snake and I tried to grab the end but it burned through my fingers and palm.

" _Ack!_ Roan!"

Freddie was patting dust off his clothes. I'd already gotten up and started running.

"Ay, kid! Where are you going?!"

"He's mine!" I yelled back. "Don't worry, tell Maggie I'll be back."

I followed Roan's tracks, which was easy because he'd left a dust cloud. When I found him, the end of the lasso had gotten caught against a truck tire. I saw it happen. I saw the rope tangle, catch, and Roan still galloping at full speed as he reached the end of the tether and was thrown head over heels by his own momentum. His neck jerked backwards so violently I thought it had snapped. He landed hard on his back, flailing and screaming. I'd never heard a horse scream before. I didn't even know they _could_ scream. But Roan _screamed._ He was strangling himself. When horses panic, they're like people. They get stupid and dangerous and fight or flight takes over and in that moment Roan was fighting for his life.

His screams were tightened as the rope clenched around his throat, and I couldn't get close without a hoof going through my jaw. It was like he was galloping up-side down.

"ROAN! STOP!"

Walkers were coming. One, opposite me, tried to get at him but Roan threw his back leg out at just the right moment to knock its head right off its shoulders. He was on his side, exhausting himself, so I threw myself forward and sliced my knife through the rope and he was able to scramble to his legs again. But the rope was still too tight, and he was still panicking, so he ran again.

"Dammit!"

I had to take down the last three walkers, used a bullet, and as the sound rang in my ears I ran after Roan again.

This time, when I found him, he was choking. His head was bowed and he was gagging for air and stumbling. His bloody knees hit the ground and then the rest of him did too, and a dirt cloud was kicked up around him. I was already there. I collapsed to my knees and forced the rope away, had to cut it, and Roan just laid there heaving and worn out and barely conscious. I was worried he was having a heart attack. I didn't know if horses could have heart attacks. I didn't know what to do for a horse who's _having_ a heart attack, so I just sat there and held his head in my lap and tried to coo to him.

After long enough, I realised I was waiting. Roan was going to die. And I tried to be ready for it. It was dumb, to be sad over a dying horse. Or a dead kitten. Or a dead goat or pig. But that's how sad worked. Something you cared about was missing or going to be, and you were just sad about it.

Even so, after a while, Roan was still breathing, and he had enough energy to sit up so he wasn't flat on the ground anymore, and he just laid there for a while and let me pet his head and rub his neck and whisper small comforts into his ear.

We were in an old, dried-up ditch—the kind that wouldn't be easy to climb out of. I didn't even remember climbing down into it. Still, somehow it was nice; just sitting and looking and listening and feeling. Roan must have thought so too because after a while, he was licking and chewing on his own mouth; I'd picked up on that, that licking and chewing was what he did when he was comfortable.

Suddenly, Roan pulled himself to his feet. I stood back and watched him shake the dust off his body. Grey clouds rose from his fur like a second skin, and then rained down around him, catching the sunset light in the specs.

He staggered up onto the track quickly. It took me a few tries, but I managed to get myself out of the ditch, too.

Roan didn't let me pet him right away. When I tried to touch his neck he bit me, but he let me put my belt around his head and nose. Only I stopped short from pulling him to come with me. I got to thinking that I didn't want to bring him back. Or rather that I shouldn't.

I sighed and walked away...

"See you around, man."

...except Roan followed me.

"No, Roan. You gotta go."

I turned again and walked... and grimaced when I heard hoofbeats clopping after me.

"Dammit..."

I turned, scowled. Roan looked tired, like he wanted me to make the hurt go away. I couldn't. I never could. He took a deep wheezy breath and stepped forward to put his muzzle against my pocket. I stepped away.

"Roan. _Go._ I don't have anything. Go get your own food. There's grass, right over there."

He rubbed my chest with his head. I pushed him away. He did it again. He wanted me to scratch an itch. I wanted to scratch it for him.

I shoved him back.

"GO!"

Roan spooked and backed up. He put his ears back, then forward.

"FUCK OFF!" I screamed.

He just looked at me. It was cold that day. Our breath made fog. At least mine did. Not his. Roan was holding his breath. I didn't know horses could hold their breath.

"RUN AWAY!" I roared. "YOU'RE MEANT TO RUN AWAY!" I picked up dirt and flung it at him. Roan threw his head up and squealed. I did it again. And again. "RUN AWAY! _VAFFANCULO, SI CAZZO!_ RUN AWAY!"

I sprinted. I rammed right into his chest. He didn't try to get away. He just backed up like he thought that was what I wanted him to do. It wasn't. I wanted him to lash out, kick or bite or buck. I kept yelling and screaming and pushing and then I fell over and cried. Roan stood away from me, staring, and I just curled up on the ground and cried.

"Why won't you run away?" I sobbed. "Why won't you run away anymore?!"

He wouldn't run away.

 _I wouldn't run away._

I guess I realised that it wasn't only me who'd decided it.

"I'm sorry," I muttered into his fur. "I'm sorry."

Even after all that, Roan let me take us back to Hilltop. I didn't know if it was a good idea to keep Roan there, what with the danger of Saviors possibly recognising him. Roan wasn't the only horse in Virginia but he was certainly the only one-eared horse.

"Shit."

I didn't know what to do.

* * *

The sun was setting when Roan and I got back.

I was still pretty emotional, so I didn't really react very well when Gregory came storming out of Barrington house towards me, waving a thumb and demanding I go back to where I came from. He was mad that I'd used my gun outside: "You'll attract every one of those things for miles!"

I apologised for it.

"Not good enough," Gregory said.

Freddie, who'd been waiting for me, had already given me a rope to make a halter, so I just pulled Roan to accompany me towards the cow pen. Gregory yelled at me again, but he was standing behind Roan and Roan didn't like that, so he kicked out. Gregory yelped. I sort of just looked back at him to make sure he wasn't hurt. I didn't mean for that to happen but I wasn't exactly sorry for it.

"I didn't agree to let this beast stay!" he said—at a distance, wiping the dirty graze on his pant leg. "In fact, I didn't agree to let _you_ stay."

I just shrugged and ran the back of my finger over Roan's chin.

"Boy, you better look at me when I'm talking to you!"

I looked at him. "It's Oliver."

"It's what?"

"My name. It's Oliver."

"Right, right," Gregory said, waving a hand. He stuttered for what else he wanted to say. "You can't stay in Jesus' trailer. Too many people."

"I... I think I like it," I said.

Gregory gave me a funny look. "It's a fire hazard."

I didn't say anything. I'd grown not to be afraid of fire anymore.

"Don't expect to stay for nothing," he said after an awkward pause, pointing a finger. "You'll have to work. You understand, don't you, Jasper?"

I squinted at him, then shrugged.

"No more free rides on the teat!"

I wanted to say I'd ride a dick before I rode any teat, but I realised that would've been a bad strategy and instead I just waved over my shoulder.

"And that horse is gonna have to go."

I stopped, looked at him.

"We've already got enough mouths to feed," Gregory said. I narrowed my eyes and walked over to him. Gregory backed up a few steps. Roan had his ear flat back. "That gonna be a problem?"

"Where's Dr. Carson?"

I already knew. Enid told us...

Gregory traded Dr. Carson for a crate of aspirin.

I looked him in the eye and tilted my head. "Was it fun, kneeling?"

He glared at me.

"I didn't kneel," he defended, looking me up and down, "not this time."

"Great, man."

Gregory's eyes narrowed.

"Didn't anybody teach you how to talk to your elders, boy?" he asked me.

"Sure."

" _...Sir._ "

"Oh," I said, "you don't have to call me sir." And I had this shit-eating grin on my face because I'd never said that to anybody before.

Gregory's face, on the other hand, became a furnace. He didn't say anything for a minute, and then this tiny grin slid across the corner of his mouth and I wasn't sure why, but it made me nervous, a little—a lot. Without saying anything else to me, he just nodded his head and walked away.

"Freddie," he said, "go find Jesus for me, would you? Need to speak with him about his _guests_."

"Uh, yeah. Sure."

I tied Roan up next to the cow paddock on a long rope so he could graze. Maggie helped me tend to him. He had some pretty serious rope-burn around his throat and mane, a few cuts and scratches on his knees, and he was still wheezing from the strain on his larynx, but Maggie kissed under his eye and told him he would be okay, and Roan was as sweet to her as he was to me.

I wondered if it was the pregnant thing, like he could tell, like he knew she was the one who needed protecting. When Maggie wasn't looking, I called him a, "Sap," and Roan put his ear back at me like he was offended. I laughed and pushed his teeth away—"Dork."

Maggie smiled at us.

"You're good with horses," she said.

I shrugged. "Picked up some tricks at the Kingdom. My friend, Benjamin, taught me. Before I went back to Alexandria again."

We fussed over Roan for a few minutes until we were ready to go back to the trailer. I went to the table. I put my bag away. I looked at the yellow flowers.

 _Me,_ I thought. _I think I forgive me._

"Everything okay, sweetie?" Maggie asked me.

I looked at her and smiled.

"Yeah. Everything's okay."

And that was when Daryl crashed into the trailer. We both startled.

"Ay, you seen Sasha and Rosita?" he said when he saw us.

Maggie and I shook our heads.

"Not since this morning," Maggie said.

My stomach dropped. Shit. I was such an idiot. Too much time not rushing. This whole time I hadn't thought to tell Maggie what was going on. 'Soon' was sooner than I thought.

Daryl was already leaving, running towards Barrington house. He burst inside, then came out a minute or so later with Jesus. We all gathered on the porch. We didn't have to discuss. We already knew what was happening...

"They're going after Negan."

* * *

 **Notes**

Can you tell yet that I ship Desus?

Again, the scene where Oliver tracked down Roan was adapted and used in a final assignment for prose class last spring, and now you can find it over on my FictionPress account. It's the story called: _'Prose: Stay' –_ link in profile.


	51. Something They Need: Guns

**RHatch89** thank you!

 **DampishPoet** All your comments just seem to be you passionately insulting me

 **SwoopyWoo** xD he appreciates it

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

 _I'm nothing but a low life  
Thinking 'bout my own life  
I can't help myself from falling  
Can't help myself from falling..._

We were on our way to Hilltop.

Jesus saw us first. Us, as in, half of Alexandria walking in through the gates early in the morning before the sun was fully above the horizon. He and Daryl were sitting together by the main house, not talking. Daryl was just smoking, and Jesus was just watching him do that. They looked stressed, but the type of stressed that wasn't as bad as it might've been if we'd shown up earlier. That type of stressed _after_ being really really stressed, where the stress has had enough time to become more bearable, and so they were just sitting, smoking and smoke-watching.

Daryl stood up and watched us approach, and Jesus a little behind him, crossed his arms; beanie tucked in a back pocket.

"You left Kingdom," Dad said.

Daryl narrowed his eyes, chewed his mouth, and nodded, and that seemed to be all they needed to say about it.

"We're here to talk with Maggie," Dad said. "You both too, and Sasha."

"About what?" Jesus asked.

"Need your help—see if you can't help us in gettin' some guns."

"From where?" Daryl asked.

"Oceanside."

Daryl looked at Jesus, who nodded. They sort of talked in their heads then, Jesus and Daryl, and then Jesus said/thought something to Daryl that made Daryl grit his teeth and nod too, so Jesus turned to us.

"But uh, you should know something, Rick – everyone..." Jesus looked at us all. He was frowning, frowning in this way like he knew we weren't going to like what he was about to tell us. "Sasha's not here. She was. Rosita, too. But they left."

We all stared at him.

Jesus sighed and jerked his chin towards the trailers.

"Come," he said. "Talk to Maggie."

* * *

I left the grown-ups to talk. After all, within a few minutes I'd heard what I needed to hear; that Sasha and Rosita had run away to kill Negan, that they were both likely not going to make it back alive, that there wasn't even anything we could do about it until this whole Oceanside business was over. It was splattering spirits worse than walkers between cabled-cars, so I left to find Oliver.

Daryl said Maggie might know. She didn't. Maggie said he might be with Enid. He wasn't. And Enid said he might be by the paddocks.

 _Bingo._

It was still early, but I'd heard Oliver was up all night worrying over Sasha and Rosita with the others... so he was asleep, laid across a bale of hay.

Roan, who looked like shit, like he'd been drug through thorns or something, was tied up out of reach.

Oliver had a bucket hanging from his prosthetic hook, and had his face covered by a coat he'd borrowed from me. I tapped him in the general area his face would be. It startled him enough that the bucked swing around his arm and splashed everywhere. Roan spooked, as did some the cows in the paddock over, and I laughed while Oliver struggled to calm down enough to pull the coat away and put the bucket down.

And then I barely had a chance to catch him as he flung himself at me.

He clung around my neck and made this crazy _"Gyraahh!_ " noise, and I held him tightly and grinned into his shoulder. His flannel shirt was washed-out and colourful and soft, and the smell of him made me dizzy. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to drag him behind the haybale and kiss him until he couldn't feel his own face. God. It had only been a day. _It had only been a day._ But I missed him so much.

"What are you doing here?" I heard inside my shirt. Oliver sounded overwhelmed, like he might burst into tears.

"Stuff," I said, "things." Oliver was stuttering so I kept talking. "We're going to this place, Oceanside. Today. Tara says there's guns. We're gonna try get them to help us fight."

"Us?"

"Us," I nodded. "All of us. We're all here."

Oliver smiled, "That's so great! Oh, damn, we—uh... Why... Why are you looking at me like that?"

I pointed and asked, "What happened to your face?"

"Oh. Yeah. Enid, uh, kinda stood on it... Yeah."

I laughed. And then I kissed him. And then Oliver took my hand and pulled me out of the paddock and towards a secluded part of Hilltop.

"Think we have time?"

"No," I said, only it sounded like a breathless nod.

We squeezed through a narrow gap between one side of Barrington house and the backs of some equipment shacks, and even though Oliver took my face and pushed me to the wall and pressed himself against me and started kissing me like he wanted us to do a lot more than just kissing, he still managed to speak...

"How are you, Carl?"

I just took his wrist and waist and nodded. Our noses touched for a second while Oliver looked at me, then I pulled him back into me and kept on kissing him.

"Everything okay back home?" he asked.

"Yeah—Yeah, Oliver."

"I missed you."

"Uh-huh."

"Saviors came, yesterday." His mouth was against my throat and his hand slipped inside my pants, and I gasped at the sky. "We hid," Oliver went on, "me, Mags and Daryl; was fine – _questo stronzo maltrattò_ Enid."

I didn't even try to understand that.

"But I'm gonna get her knife back."

"Oliver..."

"Oh. And your drawing," he muttered into my collar, "it was so good, man."

" _M-hm... haa._ "

"When did you do it?"

"Do— _Dowhat?_ "

"The drawing."

"What drawing?"

" _Your_ drawing."

I whimpered.

Then I said, "Don't—I don't remember."

Oliver pulled back suddenly enough I had to clutch the wall as not to collapse. His hand, however, stayed in my pants.

"You don't remember?"

"Come on, m—man," I panted, "can—can we talk about this later?"

"But it was so great."

I think I whimpered again but it sounded like a yelp, and Oliver was doing this _thing_. He called me beautiful. He called me other things. I told him to, " _Shut up,_ please," so Oliver did, and then he did another _thing_ and I lost my mind. I bit my tongue so I wouldn't scream. I thought I was going to burst. I _loved_ thinking I was going to burst. I kissed him so hard he was breathing through my mouth. My lungs for his. His mouth for mine. And then he got down on his knees and I was reeling and _crazy_ and tangling my fingers through his hair and gasping...until it was all suddenly and madly over.

I was exhausted.

Slowly, Oliver stood up. He looked at me. He wiped his mouth. I remembered how to use my hands, so I buckled up my jeans and belt again. I was all sweaty and dopey and a little awkward and embarrassed.

I looked around, a little out of breath.

"Jeez," I said, "the whole of Hilltop could have seen that."

Oliver just smirked.

"Nobody comes back here," he said.

I watched him. I didn't know what to say. I just wanted him to kiss me, so he did. He kissed my cheek, then my lips... tugging them with his teeth. My breath caught.

I looked into his eyes and I could see them when he pulled away from me. As the breeze moved the trees around, the sun caught them, his eyes, and the brown in them turned into all these gold embers and I could hear them crackle and explode like fireworks. I blinked, taking a mental snap-shot, something I'd draw later: _Fireworkeyes._

Overwhelmed, I put my head back against the wall and swallowed. I figured we were still pretty stupid to have just done that in broad daylight, and my dad would surely come looking for us to leave any second, but I also figured I didn't really care, and then I reached forward and started fumbling with Oliver's belt.

Oliver seemed a little surprised, and then this slow grin loosened his face, and he shook his head incredulously.

"You're a fire hazard, man," he said.

"Says the guy with the sun in his pocket."

Oliver gave me a funny look and giggled like he was high. "What does that even mean, Carl?"

"Nothing," I said, and I kissed him, _hard_. And I made it last... "You're sure nobody'll come by?"

He nodded.

"Might need to make it quick."

"Trust me," he said, "it will be."

I pressed our foreheads, then pushed my hand into his underwear and watched his eyes roll to the back of his head.

"It's good to see you," I said.

"You—You, too, man."

I smiled at him.

"And you're welcome," I said, "for the drawing."

Oliver just bit his lip and looked at what I was doing. Then he looked at me, looked and looked and _looked_ as I knelt down in front of him.

I glanced up.

"You good?"

He shut his eyes.

"So good, man."

* * *

We didn't get caught. We heard Dad calling for us just as Oliver was buckling back up.

While we all set up to leave, Gregory didn't say anything to us. He just sat in his office and drank his whisky. Although I did hear him call Oliver _Arthur_ at one point, or maybe _Alexander_. I don't remember. Still, we were out of his hair before the big expensive clock on his desk struck ten.

Maryland, on the east coast near Baltimore was Oceanside's location.

The drive there took half the day. Dad, Michonne, Tara, Jesus, Enid, Oliver and I all took the RV. Aaron, Eric, Scott, Tobin, Francene and Gabriel took the eagle truck. Daryl tailed on his bike. Once we were close enough, we parked by a lake reserve.

There was a small rowboat.

Aaron rowed Dad, Daryl, Michonne and the explosives out across the lake to get them close enough to Oceanside to start set up, then while they began, Aaron came back to collect Eric, Scott and Tobin. Next, he collected Jesus, Gabriel and Francene. His last trip would be to collect Oliver, Enid, Tara and me. While we were waiting and taking watch, Enid asked me a question.

"Do you ever think about who you've killed?"

I looked at her. Oliver was standing beside her, too, but he kept his eyes on the water.

I nodded. "Yeah."

* * *

When we were all on the other side, we finished rigging the explosives at the outskirts of Oceanside, just far enough for them not to hear or see us yet. Then, on a time schedule, Tara left with an unloaded gun to talk to their leader, Natania, and hopefully work out an agreement _before_ their time was up.

We waited.

And waited.

"Come on, Tara," Oliver whispered to Lizzie's watch head. "Give the signal. Give the signal..."

"How much longer?" Dad asked him.

"Uh, ten seconds."

Oliver looked at me, then Dad, then back to his watch, counting down with his fingers.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

We covered our ears and ducked.

And Dad flicked the switch.

BOOM

I felt the shockwave. The screaming came from the camp while black ash and dirt rained down across the sky.

"Go! Go!"

KAPOW

After the second explosion, we could see through the trees women and children running. On the other side of Oceanside, Jesus, Aaron, Eric and Daryl had the arsenal covered, and Michonne had them covered from the trees. The Oceanside residents screamed at another explosion as it went off a little way left of the beaten track. It drove them to a clearing where the rest of us were waiting to ambush...

"Everybody down!" Francine roared.

"Hands on your heads!" Tobin.

"Stay calm," Scott.

"We don't want anyone to get hurt," I said. "Jus' stay down and listen to what we say."

"We want this to go as simply and as peacefully as possible," Gabriel said, "all of you can make it that way."

Jesus and Daryl came through with two more women; must've been trying to get to the arsenal.

"Get down over there," Daryl told the woman with a ponytail. "Keep quiet."

She sat, along with the second woman who had short hair. Someone called her Beatrice.

Dad was behind them.

"Now, we made a lot of noise," he announced, pulling his rifle off over his head. "We wanna wrap this up quick, so you can send people to redirect anything coming this way. Tara said your forests are relatively clear, so we won't take any chances. _No one_ needs to get hurt. This is just about what you have, what we need."

"Nobody's taking anything!"

We spun around.

An older woman trudged through the woodland, shoving Tara ahead at the end of her gun—not Tara's. This gun was loaded. The lady had pale skin and messy grey hair tied back. With her was another woman, younger, early twenties maybe. She had long wavy black hair and brown skin.

"You need to let everyone go and leave right now," the older lady said, squaring up ahead of Dad. "Just walk away or this one dies."

Tara's eyes stuck to him like glue.

Oliver's gun was up. Mine too.

"Yeah, we'll leave you alone," Dad said. "But we're taking your weapons with us—that's not gonna change. It's Natania, right?"

She peeked around Tara's head and glared at him.

"Put the gun down," Dad went on, "and let's talk about what we can change."

"No," Natania hissed. "Leave. Right now."

Tara's eyes went up to a tree in the distance... "Michonne, _don't!_ "

A few Oceanside women were crying. A little boy, younger than five by the looks, was trembling so hard the woman holding him was jolting. I thought of a little boy who died once:

 _"Mom...  
Mom...  
Mom... _

_...MOM!"_

"We just wanna be left alone," Natania growled.

"Yeah, we'll leave you alone," Dad tried. "Just let go of her, now. _Or_ we'll kill you. None of us want that."

"They want us to fight the Saviors," the younger woman, who I realised must've been Cyndie, said to her people.

"We tried that," Natalia said, curt. "We lost. _Too much._ We're not gonna lose anymore. Not our guns, not our safety, not after everything we've done to get here."

"We're gonna win," Tara said over her, "with your guns, _with_ or _without_ your help."

My gun was down. Everybody else's too. Enid was across from us. Her hands were shaking.

"Natania," Dad said, "put the gun down."

"You kill me and you die," Tara said. "And my people take the guns and _nothing_ changes."

"Maybe we should try."

Beatrice said that, and the crazy thing was that most of the other women started nodding.

Natalia's face reeled, like she'd just been slapped.

"Grandma, stop," Cyndie said. "It's over. Just talk to them, okay?"

"IT'S _NOT_ OVER!" She yanked on Tara's collar. Tara winced. "They've forgotten," Natalia accused. "You've _all_ forgotten. Some of you _actually_ want to fight them? After everything? We can lose our guns, but us leaving this place to _fight?_ After everything, I have to remind you!

Yes.

I am gonna do this.

And then I'm gonna die.

But it's that _important!_

This is your life, all of you. Remember what it looks like. Remember what they did to us! You need to see this. Open your eyes!"

I got flashes of that night in the line-up. I pictured Tara's brains splattering across the forest floor. But that wasn't going to happen. It wasn't going to happen because—

"RICK!" Michonne screamed. "WALKERS!" And Cyndie threw a fist at Natania's head and the old lady hit the ground hard.

—Enid was standing right behind her, gun up and shuddering.

The growling woke her up. It woke all of us up. We could see the shambling figures through the trees. The walkers around Oceanside were different. Most were bloated and soggy and rotted away with seaweed caught around their necks and coral growing in their eyeballs and along their skin.

"Everybody up!" Dad yelled. "Get the children behind us! They're coming!"

"First shift, join them on the line," Beatrice yelled. They were trained. "Knives out. Dead only. _Dead only!_ "

"Don't go anywhere," I heard Dad ask her.

He stepped ahead beside me, the rest of us lined up and aiming.

"Everyone!" Dad yelled. "Shots within ten feet of the line. That's it."

We took them all out in good time and efficiency. Even Michonne had us covered from the trees. There was this little girl, no older that twelve. She kicked a walker's knees in and drover her knife through its skull so fast I almost double took. Oliver did. He double took and he shuddered. But he kept shooting. I did too. As did everybody else. The Oceansides' _'first shift'_ were good, too. Really good. It took less than a minute for over thirty walkers to be laid still on the ground.

Beatrice returned Dad's knife and they shook hands.

"No," Natalia muttered. She had a bruise on her face and a limp as she walked away. "We're not fighting them with you. So take your damn guns and go!"

That's all we needed to hear.

When we got to Oceansides' campsite, we gathered all their guns and carried them back towards the boat. Me and Enid were sharing the load of a rifle case. It was heavy. But for some reason _Enid_ looked like she was feeling it worse, the heaviness. I got this hunch that she was still being weighed down by what she almost had to do back there...

I glanced back at Oliver, who was lugging a big wicker basket with Jesus. I looked at the old scar on his temple, and I thought about the Governor. I thought about Ron, and Simon, and Negan, and how much the world would be different if I'd just taken a shot, taken all of them... so I turned back to Enid.

"It's not just the ones I killed," I told her. "I think about the people I didn't kill, too."

* * *

We got back to Alexandria later that night, Rosita was at home already. She looked exhausted and drained and like she had too much to say and not enough energy to get it all out yet.

"Hey, are you okay?" Enid asked her.

"Where's Sasha?" Jesus, too.

We all looked at her. The breeze swayed her hair and cricket songs flew between us all like rushing water, like the night was alive around our ankles and fingertips.

"There's someone here," she said.

* * *

Rosita took Dad, Michonne, Tara, Daryl and Jesus to the brownstone apartments to meet the _'someone'_ Rosita was talking about.

Oliver, Enid and I weren't allowed in. Maggie was keeping an eye on Judith at home, us too by default, except she was tired, so she fell asleep quickly and we were able to sneak out to the Brownstone cell anyway. _We weren't allowed inside._ So we stayed _outside_...and listened through the window.

As we got close, we heard: "He says he wants to help us." and, "That true? You wanna help?"

"I do."

We peeked, and inside the cell, Dwight was standing there watching them.

"That son of a..."

"Sh," Oliver said to me. I gave him a look. He gave me one back, then tugged my sleeve so I'd look into the cell again.

My father was now holding the barrel of his Python between Dwight's eyes.

"Get on your knees."

Dwight did.

"Look at me."

Again, Dwight did.

" _Why?_ " Dad asked.

"'Cause I want it stopped."

It was hard to hear Dwight's voice. He seemed to only talk in rumbles, the deep ones from under your stomach. And the window was murky and blurred. It took more focus trying to see _and_ hear, so we mostly just tried to hear.

"I want Negan dead."

"So why don't you kill him?" Dad asked.

"Can't just be me," Dwight replied. "They're all Negan."

I could hear that a million times and it would always make me uncomfortable.

"That girl you murdered," Tara spoke. "She had a name... Her name was Denise, and she was a doctor. And she _helped_ people."

"I wasn't aiming for her."

Then there was a gasp and grunting and heavy breathing. When Oliver peeked through the window, his eyes widened.

"What is it?"

Oliver didn't answer me. Enid tugged his sleeve but he wouldn't look away. He seemed... excited.

"Do it," Tara said inside. " _Do it._ "

"You wanna end it this way," Dwight said, "you go ahead, Daryl. I'm sorry. I am. I know you want to."

"He could just be here to see if you were here," Dad.

"We can't trust him," Michonne.

"He owned me," Dwight went on. "But not anymore. What I did, I was doing it for someone else. She just got away. So now I'm here. So are you because of her."

"Do it!" Tara yelled.

Oliver's grip tightened on the window ledge.

"There's another choice," Dwight rasped.

"Daryl," Tara spoke over him. "Daryl, you knew her."

"Negan trusts me," Dwight urged. "We work together, we can stop him. You knew me then, and you know me now. You know I'm not lying. I'm not."

"Do it. Do it!"

Enid and I couldn't even see. Oliver could. He whispered, " _Do it, man,_ " and he wouldn't even blink. But Daryl must not have done it because Oliver sat back, disappointed.

Enid looked at me, uncomfortable.

"They have Sasha," Rosita said, "if she's even alive."

"Why didn't you say something?" Jesus asked. "He could be our only chance to get her back."

"Because I don't trust him. But I trust Daryl."

"Negan's coming soon," Dwight said. "Tomorrow. Three trucks probably. Twenty Saviors and him. I can slow them down, bring some trees down in the road, buy a little time for you guys to get ready."

Oliver and I looked at each other. Sometimes, if he was anxious enough, not just his hand would shake but both his arms too; his prosthetic made clunky metal noises.

"If you can take them out, that's where we start," Dwight went on. "You kill them, I'll radio back to the Sanctuary."

"The Sanctuary?"

"Where Negan lives," Dwight said. "That's what they call it. I can radio back to them and say everything's okay. You drive the trucks back, and I can lead you right inside, and, with the right plan, we can wipe out the rest. Check to see if your friend's still alive. Then, we get the workers on our side, build our numbers up, and go from outpost to outpost and end this."

There was silence, until again, Dad broke it...

"Keep talking."

And Dwight did, almost all night until Jesus took Maggie, Enid and Judith to Hilltop where they'd be safe for the fight. Dwight started it. _We_ started it. The whole thing. But if he was lying, he was going to die...

If he was lying, we all were.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Lowlife_ by X Ambassadors. Thanks Elanyeverywhere, and thanks for the whole playlist you sent too.

There're only three more chapters of this book left. I'll either end the series there or if season 8 inspires me I'll keep going (probably the latter tbh did you see the trailer fam it looks lit). But this year at uni I'm going to _concentrate_. I'm not to put studying _before_ fanfiction. I'm _not_ going to get distracted like I did last year. I'm _not_ going to go mad again and I'm _not_ going to use this story as a coping mechanism...

As always,  
Happy reading.


	52. First Day of the Rest of Your Life: P1

**DampishPoet** I appreciate it all the same xD

 **RHatch89** thanks, a bunch :)

Think I'm a just upload the rest of this story within the next few days/weeks so I can have the rest of summer to focus on preparing for uni :)

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

The next morning, I woke up alone.

I'd fallen asleep with Oliver, but he wasn't around the house. Not by the lake, or on watch, or even the old alcove or the empty house.

Finally, I found him behind the church, sitting by someone's grave.

The world had frosted over in the night; just starting to thaw. Birds chirped and the sun was rising over roof-tops.

Oliver was asleep.

I knew he went there sometimes, to the graveyard, but I didn't know he stayed long enough to fall asleep.

I knelt by his side and placed my hand on his shoulder. He startled.

"Just me," I said.

He had this small moment of panic, like he wasn't sure who I was, or like he thought I was somebody else. His breath was fast and shallow and he pushed my hand away, and then he saw me, _me,_ and he calmed down.

"Hey," I whispered. "You..." He was shivering. I swallowed. "You should come back to the house. You'll get sick."

He mumbled something, something like, "I am sick," except then he sort of pretended he didn't say that and instead said something else: "I need to find flowers for his grave. The old ones died."

I looked at the name carved into the wooden headboard.

 _MIKEY LLOYALS  
1995 __–_ _2012_

"How long have you been out here?"

Oliver didn't answer me, just shrugged.

I watched him, and then I said, "We'll find him flowers. Promise."

Oliver looked at me then, like he was going to cry.

-I ran my fingertips through his fringe, then let the early breeze blow it all back again. Oliver shivered again so I took off my coat and put it around his shoulders. Oliver reached out to me.

He put his hand on my knee, kept it there for a few seconds, then let go.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said. "I just really really love you."

I smiled. I bent down and kissed his forehead and whispered, " _Al de là,_ Oliver."

He agreed to come home and sleep for the rest of the morning, but as we were walking back, we heard the trucks approaching Alexandria...

Oliver rubbed his sleepy eyes.

"Is it them already?"

"Junkies. Yeah."

Brakes squeaked and engines hissed in the distance. We heard the gate pull open, and a whole army of Junkies began setting up around Alexandria. They'd brought bikes and those trash-trucks with the crushers and more people climbed out of them. Michonne and Dad talked with Jadis, who had a long, pale face and straight, shoulder-length, brown hair with grown-out blond ends. Rosita, Aaron and Daryl were wiring up the explosives in a truck parked outside by the burned houses. On the side of the truck, the logo read: _Trust a Move._

* * *

Oliver and I got to work loading our guns and packing ammo, and then we went up onto the guard post next to the front gate, which, three months ago, Noah had extended to stretch all the way along the wall. Aaron, Eric and Scott came and joined us, positioned to our left, along with a few other Junkies and my father who was standing on the far right at the edge beside the gate.

Oliver's hands were shaking. Earlier, he'd told me that he was nervous. I couldn't tell if he was nervous in an afraid way or in an excited way.

A Junkie—maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, caught Oliver glance at his cigarette as he lit it with a match. He had long hair tied back in a messy bun. His skin was sun-burned and scarred and rashy, and he had dark circles under his eyes and specks of sweat and dust in the lines along his neck and face and fingers. He looked like he was filled with sand, sort of. That was the colour of him, too; sand. His hair and his eyes and his skin—sand like the sand you find in desserts; so dry the colour is almost gone altogether. Still, in a strange and worn-out way, he was handsome.

I guess I didn't notice that I was watching him, too, because he caught me, like he had Oliver, and smirked when I turned my head back to the _Trust a Move_ truck. When I snuck another look, he was looking at Oliver again.

Oliver knew it, and looked at him, too.

"Could really use a smoke right now," he said—like he wasn't a boy slowly getting a little too into that kind of thing. I didn't look, but I still saw out the corner of my eye as the Junkie reached into his pocket and held out a pack. Oliver took a cigarette, then asked, "Shoot me up?"

The Junkie did.

He gestured Oliver towards him. Oliver shuffled over, thanking him under his breath with the cigarette between his lips. I watched the ends of their cigarettes press and glow and crackle. The guy kept looking, looking at Oliver's eyes and Oliver's mouth and down the front of Oliver's V-neck. I couldn't see what Oliver was looking at, but his head was moving a little. And the guy grabbed the back of Oliver's neck to keep him still. Except something happened. I guess I already knew Oliver didn't like it when people touched him unexpectedly, but a part of me still didn't think he'd do what he did next.

Before I knew what happened, Oliver flinched and grunted. He smacked the guy's arm away and pulled back. The Junkie looked a little taken off guard, and then he smirked, like it was a game. Oliver saw the smirk but he turned away and scowled out over the driveway for a second, and when that second was over he took a long drag that he blew up to the sky.

He shut his eyes.

The Junkie looked past him, at me. I knew so because I was glaring at him. And I kept on glaring at him, so he looked away. I checked Oliver's face but he didn't look at me. He just smoked more. The smell made me think of the evenings Carol smoked on the porch next door, the way the breeze would carry the scent up and in through my window. I wondered if he was thinking about those mornings, too.

Oliver squinted out over the driveway as he took another drag, then blew the smoke out of his nose. He put his arm up on his knee and bit his thumbnail. He looked like Daryl like that, a little. It occurred to me how weird it was to want to punch him and also kiss him at the same time. Maybe he noticed, because Oliver set the cigarette on the edge of the wall in front of him. He reached across to me.

He put his hand on my knee, kept it there for a few seconds, then let go.

In my head, I told him _al de la._

And in his head, he heard it.

The Junkie guy made a small scoff at the back of his throat and looked away from us. Oliver ignored him. I didn't. I was grinning from the inside out while the guy took another drag, grimacing as he put out the cigarette and flicked the butt over the wall.

"We win," he said.

 _Yeah,_ I thought. _We do._

Oliver picked up his cigarette and smoked.

Just then, a Junkie somewhere sounded an alarm, which was one of those animal-call whistles. Another Junkie somewhere else sounded their own whistle.

The Saviours were coming.

Dad looked over at me and nodded. And then he caught sight of Oliver and double took.

" _Oliver!_ Put that out."

Apologising, Oliver snubbed it out and left it by his boot. He blushed, and when I snorted he punched my arm.

Dad turned away.

"Rosita."

She nodded up to him. She was standing in front of the gate. The bars were shut but the tarp was open to see through.

"Get into position," Dad told her. "I'll signal you... And the wall's gonna hold?"

"It'll hold."

A moment later, vehicles were approaching. Three trucks. My heart went to my throat and blocked it. And then all our eyes went wide when we saw the figure standing on the trailer of the first truck.

 _"All points are covered..."_

It was Eugene, talking through a megaphone. The truck's trailer had nothing on the back but him and a large, rectangular crate tied down and covered by rope and a sheet.

 _"Every contingency is already met,"_ Eugene went on. _"I come armed with two barrels of the truth. A test is upon you, and I'm giving out the cheat sheet."_

I couldn't believe him.

His truck, driven by some Saviour, parked on the grass in front of the _Trust a Move_ truck. The other two Savour trucks were parked along the driveway.

 _"H-Hello,"_ Eugene said. _"I come salved with the hope that it is my dropped knowledge that you heed. Options are zero to none."_ He sighed. The sigh sounded scratchy in the megaphone. _"Compliance and fealty are your only escape. Bottom-lining it: You may thrive, or you may die. I sincerely wish for the former, for everyone's sake. The jig is up, and in full effect. Will you comply, Rick?"_

Eugene had turned on us. Just like that? After everything?

"Where's Negan?" Dad ordered.

Eugene put down his megaphone.

And he said it.

He said, "I'm Negan."

My stomach sank, fell from the post and hit the ground with a splat. Dad's too. He took a deep breath, then another, and then he looked at Rosita and nodded, and it was over...

 _click_

...only it wasn't.

We'd all ducked, but there was no explosion. There was silence. The _Trust a Move_ truck was still in one piece and guns clicked and before we knew it the Junkies had turned on us too, one barrel aimed at each of our backs.

An old Junkie, Jadis' right hand man, opened the gate.

Negan stepped out of his truck. He patted Eugene's back as he stepped down.

The _Trust a Move_ truck was opened and the explosives were disarmed and folded up by Negan's men.

Dwight looked around.

I wanted to shoot him through the skull.

"You ever hear the one about the stupid little prick named Rick who thought he knew shit but didn't know shit," Negan asked, "and got _everyone_ he gave a shit about killed?"

He pointed up at Dad.

"It's about you."

I looked at Oliver. He looked at me, too. He looked horrified. And then the sandy guy dug his gun into the side of his temple and Oliver flinched and had to look down.

"You're all gonna wanna put your guns down now," Negan said.

"No one drops anything," Dad urged. He said something to Jadis who was standing behind him with a gun to his head. I only heard the last part of what she said back:

"He made a better deal."

"You push me, and you push me. _And_ you push me, Rick!" Negan said, hips forward in that way. "You just tried to blow us up, right? I mean, I get me, my people. But Eugene? He's one of _yours_. And after what he did, he stepped _up_. You people are animals. Universe gives you a sign, Rick, and you just..." Negan flipped him off. " _...shove_ your finger right up its ass."

Negan laughed.

"Dwight, Simon, chop-chop."

They climbed up onto the first truck and uncovered the sheet to reveal a coffin. Simon wheeled it back, then stood it up beside Negan on the trailer. He caught a glimpse up at Oliver and double took, but stepped down from the truck when he needed to move out of the way.

"So, you don't like Eugene anymore," Negan said, Lucille swinging by his calve. "You guys gotta like Sasha. I do, too."

Lucille knocked on the coffin.

Negan said, "Got her right here packaged for your convenience, alive and well. Now, I brought her so I wouldn't have to kill all of you, and not killing all of you could get complicated. See, I _know_ there's a lot of firepower left in there, Rick. So I'm gonna make this simple.

I want all the guns you've managed to scrape up.  
 _Yep_ , I know about those, too.

I want every last grain of lemonade you got left.

I want a person of your own choosing,  
for Lucille.

Daryl— _ooh,_ I gotta get me my _Daryl_ back.  
I see you.

 _And_ the pool table and _all_ the pool cues and chalk.

And I want it _now,_ or Sasha dies, and then all of you. _Probably._

C'mon, Rick."

I was so angry. _I was so angry._ I felt like I had all the angry in the world built up inside of me and just me and nobody would ever know how angry me and all my angry felt. I'd never tell anybody of my angry. My _pure_ angry. It was mine and mine only.

"Just because I brought her in a casket doesn't mean she has to _leave_ in it."

Dad said nothing.

"You know what?" Negan asked. "You suck _ass,_ Rick. You _really_ do. I don't want to have to kill her, but that's exactly what you're gonna make me do."

"Let me see her."

Negan chuckled. "Oh. Alright. Just give me a second. I might have to get her up to speed. You can't hear _shit_ inside this thing."

He used Lucille to knock again.

"Sash. You're not gonna believe this crap."

Negan opened the coffin...and Sasha lunged out at him.

" _Holy fuck!_ "

She was growling. She grabbed him, and they fell from the trailer. I didn't wait. I didn't want to miss another shot. I didn't want more people to add to the list of the people I didn't kill. So I swung around and put a bullet through an old Junkie's knee, and another through his skull. Oliver followed suit and shot another Junkie through the skull, and another.

I saw the guy from earlier, heavy with adrenaline and sand as he aimed at me. Oliver threw himself at him, and as the Junkie fell from the post, he snatched Oliver's shirt sleeve and dragged him over, too. I heard their yells. I watched them crash to the ground hard. Oliver screamed. And then they were fighting.

The guy wrestled the gun out of Oliver's hand and it flung out of reach. He tried to scramble for it but Oliver grabbed him. He hit him. The Junkie hit him back, right across the face. Oliver took another hit and screamed again. I couldn't shoot down without being sure I would hit my target. And then Scott grabbed my shirt and yanked me out of a spray of bullets.

We shot out at the Saviors. I saw one of my bullets split through someone's ear and out through the other. Saviors were getting in. Junkies were _already_ in. I peeked over the side to see Oliver and he was getting choked, his gun tangled in his and the Junkie's hands, and then it went off. I saw the flash, the splatter... the way Oliver's body jostled and how hard and fast he hit the ground, but I didn't want to see anything else. I didn't want to think. So I looked away. I looked away and I shut my eyes and I didn't think.

Scott and Aaron and Eric were shooting and yelling at me. I didn't think. Only I did. I thought and I thought and then I had to look. I had to. And I saw. And there was a dead boy lying in the grass.

I don't remember anything after that, just that then I was down from the watch post. Scott grabbed me as I got there but I shoved past him. My heart stopped. And then it pounded again. It wasn't Oliver. It was the Junkie. I turned him over onto his back and he wasn't full of sand anymore but blood. Blood spilling everywhere. Oliver's knife was lodged in his throat. I yanked it out, blood splashing my palms, and looked around.

"Oliver! _Oliver!_ "

I had to find him.

I had to find Oliver.

But first I needed cover. Scott fought with me. We hid between the dump-trucks. He dodged under the back and had to stay down when there were too many Saviors. They were rushing in among the Junkies like a flood.

I was alone. I thought of the prison, when I was fighting on my own until I found my father and Oliver. It occurred to me that I might not be that lucky this time.

I heard a creak and almost crapped myself, except I just turned around, and then something hard and heavy crashed into my face.

I don't think I was out for very long. The next thing I knew, I was opening my eye and the gunfire hadn't quite ended and I was winded and in pain and laid on my back against something lumpy and shaking. My face throbbed. I looked for Oliver and my father. It was like instinct. And instinct paid off because Oliver was staring down at me.

"Oliver," I said, and laughed.

My face felt so bruised that smiling ached. Blood was smattered across his cheek and lip and hand and clothes.

"I'm sorry." He sounded like he was in a lot of pain, and I wasn't smiling anymore. "I didn't mean to open the truck door that hard. Carl. Fuck. I—I... I had to hide."

"Oliver?" I saw that he was bleeding from his right arm. Bleeding bad. "Oliver..." I repeated, only my voice cracked that time. I sat up and pulled his sleeve up. He'd been shot just above his elbow. "Oh no." I sounded scared. I could tell because Oliver suddenly looked scared, too. "Oliver—shit, your arm."

"It's okay," he gasped, "just a flesh wound."

" _That'snotafleshwound._ "

"My leg," he insisted. "It's really bad."

"What happened? Crap, what's wrong with it?"

I knew the answer. I was looking right at it. Even through his jeans I could see something was wrong. Very wrong. Oliver's jeans were cuffed, so I couldn't roll them up. Instead I took his knife and sliced his jean leg open from the ankle up to the knee.

Oliver's shin was swollen. A black and purple and red bruise stretched all the way across it and in the centre was a hard lump.

And I touched it— _I don't know why I touched it I just wanted to make sure it was real and broken and a bone and I couldn't believe he had been shot and it all happening to him right when I turned my back_ —and Oliver screamed.

" _Nononodon'tdothat! Please, don't do that!_ "

"I'm sorry." I shuddered. "I'msorry. Crap. _Dammit!_ "

Oliver looked like he was going to black out. He clutched his arm and blood swelled and dribbled over his fingers.

"Son-of-a-bitch," he said. His laugh was weak and breathless. "That _rompicoglioni_ shot me up pretty good after all, huh?"

"Shh." I held his face. I didn't know what to do. "Shh, hey, hey." I was crying. "Oliver, I don't know what to do. Oliver. Oliver, you gotta tell me what to do."

He just touched my cheek—touched it and smiled and then his eyes shut and his head rolled back and he wasn't there anymore.

...

...

..

"Wait," I said to him. "Wait, Oliver... wait."

 _Wait._

I don't remember a lot of things after that. I think I remember holding him to my chest. I think I remember that I kept saying his name, "Oliver," and I kept saying, "wait." I think I remember crying. _Screaming._ I remember that. I remember yanking off my belt and tying it as hard as I could around the base of his right arm. I remember removing his belt, too, and using it to tie around his left leg. And then I remembered the rest of the world...and someone was standing right over us.

Before I could react, Simon pulled Oliver out of my hands and dropped him away from me. I dove at him, but someone else grabbed my collar and yanked me back. It was a big guy with a grey beanie hat and broad shoulders. He hung me from his fist for a second until I stopped thrashing.

"Knew I recognised this one," I heard Simon say as he grimaced down at Oliver. He didn't stir. "Not so smart-mouth now, are you, you little shit."

He cocked his gun  
and placed the barrel  
to Oliver's forehead.

"NO!" I fought furiously. I was going to kick and scream. "OLIVER!" I was going to turn into a tsunami. "OLIVER!" I was going to crush and drown every last one of them.

Only that was when Negan strolled around the truck...

"Oh, hoo!"

Lucille swung over his shoulder. He looked at me, and then he looked down at Oliver.

"This. Is. _Interesting."_

* * *

 **Notes**

Similarly to the way Oliver was only supposed to dislocate his shoulder instead of lose a hand in the last book, he was only supposed to sprain his ankle in this chapter, not break a fucking leg... oops.

 _"I'd never tell anybody of my angry. My pure angry. It was mine and mine only."_ was inspired by that quote Carl read to Oliver way back in The Easy Part chapter 13 from Bernard Beckett's _August_ : _"He could never tell her of the fear. The perfect fear. That was his alone."_

As always,  
Happy reading (.


	53. First Day of the Rest of Your Life: P2

**RHatch89** thank you :)

 **FriendlyNeighborhoodHufflepuff** ohboy that's not even the start

* * *

 _...one chapter left after this..._

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

 _Kiss my lips  
Feel the rhythm of your heart and hips  
I will pray so the castle that we've built won't cave_

 _The secrets you tell me, I'll take to my grave  
There's bones in my closet, but you hand stuff anyway  
And if you have nightmares, we'll dance on the bed  
I know that you love me, love me  
Even when I love my head  
Guillotine..._

"No way," Negan said. "No _fucking_ way."

He looked at me.

"This is him? _The_ Oliver?"

I couldn't speak.

I didn't need to.

"Wow. Shit. God fucking _damn._ "

Negan guided Simon's gun away from Oliver's face with his hand. He spent too long staring at him, like he was deciding something, making an important plan.

He looked at Simon.

"And how do _you_ know this kid, Simon?"

"Kingdom," Simon said, "he's one of Ezekiel's."

Negan's eyebrows rose up and he looked at me. He gritted his teeth, shook his head, and then he looked at Oliver again.

"He alive?"

Simon gave a confused grunt, but still went ahead and crouched down. He took Oliver's glasses off and hovered them below his nose. After a few long seconds, the glass steamed up and I remembered how having a soul felt again.

"Yeah," Simon said. "Kid's still breathing." He looked frustrated as he replaced Oliver's spectacles.

"Alright," Negan said, "let's finish up here before lunch. Seems we need to pay our deer Kingdom friends a visit — talk, about why they know this Oliver, and why _they—"_ He pointed at me. _"—_ know this Oliver, too."

And then he bust out laughing.

" _This?_ " he asked. "This is the punk that doesn't like your moustache?"

Simon pretended to laugh.

"He is."

Negan leaned back and laughed again, then grinned down at Oliver. "Ahh. I fucking like him. Alright, save your bullets for now," he said. "Kid's gonna be useful to me."

I didn't understand what that meant.

"Wake him up, would you, Simon?"

"On it."

Negan got in my face and sneered, like we were friends. I was shaking. I wanted to ask him what he wanted with Oliver, what he wanted with me, but I held my face still and glared at him.

"Ah, this is hilarious," he said. "I mean, I've heard the expression an eye for an eye, but never an eye for a fucking _hand_. How fucking _creative!_ "

Oliver hadn't woken up. Simon tried first to lift his hand, but when he let it go, it dropped with a thud. Next he smacked his face a few times, called out, "Smart-mouth, you in there?"

Oliver didn't even flinch.

People around us were dead. Saviors and Junkies _and_ Alexandrians— _mostly_ Alexandrians. We hadn't won. _We hadn't won._

Simon took a flask from around his waist...

"I'm not much of a scotch man, anyway."

...and poured it out over Oliver's face.

"Stop! Stop it," I muttered, but the muttering died out when Oliver spluttered and gagged.

Negan walked over. Simon sat Oliver up. In a gloved hand, Negan took Oliver's face and looked at him closely. Oliver could barely keep his eyes open.

"Don't touch him!"

Negan ignored me.

"It's nice to meet you, Oliver." He really meant it. "I've heard a lot about you."

I felt my face go cold and flush at the same time. Even with my struggle, the guy gripping my collar was so strong he didn't even jostle.

Negan looked over his shoulder and grinned at me.

"He'll be fine, kid. I'm not gonna do anything to him. You, on the other hand..."

Negan let go of Oliver slowly, letting his head rock forward. Simon kept hold of him.

" _Oh,_ " Negan said, "yes, siree, Carl. You just worry about yourself. This is gonna be _fun_."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

The smell of scotch made me feel sick. Someone picked me up. I screamed. My leg. _My fucking leg._ I was dropped and I screamed again. Carl was saying my name. Simon was cursing. He talked to Negan for a second. They were saying things like, "Shit, it's broken; the shot's pretty bad too," and, "Alright, let's make this quick. Carson'll take care of it at home, give us some time to plan how to _confront_ good ol' Ezekiel, too," and I couldn't do anything except hold my leg at the knee and bite back more screams.

Negan had Carl under his arm. He'd struggle and look at me but there wasn't a lot he could do. And then I was being pulled to move by Simon and the buff guy with the beanie. My legs tripped and scuffed and I cried out until my tongue bled. My arm was bleeding too. Blood had already soaked down past my bandage. I was leaving drip-trails. I didn't want to go with them. I didn't. And as much as I didn't want to die, I knew I'd still rather it over whatever Negan meant by _"Carson'll take care of it at home"_.

Carl muttered, "Dad..." and I looked, too. Rick was laid motionless in the grass by the gate. Jadis was standing over him. She nudged him with her foot and Rick stirred. He was shot. Like me.

"He'll be alright," Jadis said, "just give him a minute."

Negan nodded, then took us across the community. They knelt Carl and I down beside each other in the grass across from the lake. The scotch was stinging my eyes and inside my nose and I kept coughing and gagging. I couldn't keep on my knees. I had to slump on my butt and keep myself steady with my hand. My leg was thrumming.

Dwight just _watched._

"Oliver," Carl whispered. "Oliver..."

I couldn't lift my head. I just whispered back, "Shh," but Negan had already noticed us and Lucille turned and stopped in front of my nose. I felt a barb against my forehead, brushing my hair out of my eyes. I jerked away and told him to get fucked, except the words didn't leave me because I had to clutch my arm.

"Ohh," Negan said. He grinned. "Right, right. Almost forgot." He bent down and looked at me. His eyes dropped to my bullet wound—no, to my amputation. He tilted his head. My bandage had started unravelling.

Negan took two fingers and began to pull it off.

I swatted his hand away.

Negan chuckled.

"Goddamn," he said, pulling the bandage away from me, "so, Prick chopped it off you instead as a peace offering for me? Sweet. Sweetest Goddamn thing I've heard all fucking day."

My face folded up into a wince and I gritted my teeth, hoping I looked more angry than in pain.

"Guess what, kids?" Negan said. He leant down between us and whispered, " _It's not enough._ "

I just stared at him. Not at his face or his bat. Just his scarf. I was thinking about the colour red and why it was my favourite when I'd seen all the places and people in my life that had spilled the very same red over my bare hands. I could see Negan's face and I could see his bat but I couldn't see _him_. It was like I was in a nightmare. _No face. Just a dark scribble._

"Jesus," he said to me. "Your stink-eye's almost as bad as his."

I saw more red, smelt and tasted it too, heard its sirens in my ears and leg and felt the wet of it running down my arm; the colour infected all of my senses.

Negan's eyebrows hopped. He examined my face. My arm. All my scars.

"Bet there are some neato stories behind those, huh, kiddo?" he asked. I bit my tongue. Negan stopped smiling. He looked at Simon, like he was disappointed. "Did I or did I not just hear you call him, in your words, a _'smart-mouth little shit'_?"

Simon shrugged.

Negan shrugged back, mocking him.

"Kid doesn't speak," he complained. "What the hell you doin' calling him 'smart-mouth' when he won't even _open_ his mouth?"

"Trust me, this one's full of surprises," Simon assured.

"Well," Negan said slowly, turning to me, "I _am_ waiting, young man."

I glared at him. I could feel my eyes welling. Angry and in pain and afraid. I hated that. I hated that I couldn't help the crying. Not then. Not when I was that helpless. I put my hand up to grip the bullet wound. I could feel the amputation scar, the parts of it that stretched up that far from where Denise's hands had slipped during my struggle in the cauterisation. Negan wouldn't stop looking at me. _Nobody_ would stop looking at me.

I wiped my face, felt blood and tears all mixed up.

"You gotta be kidding me," Negan tutted. He scoffed and threw his hands up. "Here I go again, making another kid cry. _Jesus_... _fucking_... _Chri—_ "

And I spit right at his face.

Negan reeled back, grunting. For a second, while he wiped his eye, he was turned away from me. He cursed, _loud_. I knew what was going to happen to me next. I knew I'd fucked up. I knew I'd done the same thing as what I'd done in the slaughterhouse to Molly, only this time I knew I was about to die for it. Carl knew, too, because he was already muttering, "Please, please."

But it was too late.

" _Shit!_ " Negan growled. _"_ Wow, you _are_ full of surprises... Guess what, you little fucker, so am I."

And then he was turning around. With a roar, he raised Lucille above his head and then he brought her down on me. I shut my eyes. There was a scream. I waited for impact. But seconds passed and I was heaving and still alive and waiting waiting waiting.

I peeked.

Lucille was staring at me, bearing her silver teeth.

I looked past her. At Negan. His eyes looked strange, like something was suddenly freaking him out, like when I'd notice a spider in the shower or something.

He looked next to me, to Carl, who was sobbing.

"Please... please, no, d-don't! _Please!_ Pl—"

"What the _fuck?_ " Negan said.

Even I was looking at Carl. I was looking at him and wishing he would shut up, wishing he wouldn't do that. _Don't cry. Don't cry! Don't let your guard down no we're letting our guard down!_

Carl screamed, "Please don't hurt him! Please! _PLEASE!_ "

Very slowly, Negan put his head back and groaned. Over the fog in my brain, I got this terrible feeling like he was having the time of his life.

"Ah! Well, that's just precious," he said. "My little heart is _breaking!_ "

The guy holding Carl let go and he collapsed to his hands and knees.

Negan knelt in front of him, crouching to look him in the eye.

"I _do_ believe I've found your Achille's fucking heel, Carl."

Carl bit his mouth. He was dribbling and had to wipe his face. I wanted to shove him and tell him to quit it. _Quit it, man! Stop that, please!_ Only I was crying too. I'd never seen him like this. Not once. I hated that it was my fault. It was my fault and there wasn't anything I could do to help it.

We watched Negan stroll away from us, and then Rick was coming over. He stopped when he saw me and his son. Carl sat up again and tried to compose himself, and Rick was going to call out, but Jadis jabbed him in the side and made him kneel beside us.

Negan stepped through the crowd of Saviors and Junkies, Lucille perched on his shoulder.

"Hello again."

Saviors were yelling at people around Alexandria. Some of us were dead and laying along the streets, and others were barely holding on. I wondered if I was. I wondered if I was dying. I felt tired and cold and like I had a bad flu and I couldn't feel my right arm or left leg anymore. I didn't see Michonne but I knew she was up on the brownstone roof. She could shoot down at Negan right now. Why hadn't she? Why? I felt sick. I wanted to know where everybody was. I wanted my family.

"Well, shit, Rick," Negan was saying. "You just couldn't stick with us, huh? You had to go with these... _filthy_ garbage people? No offense."

I didn't look at Jadis. I already knew she was indifferent. I knew she was standing there behind us, watching in her smug way with her long, bagged face.

"Deal is for twelve, yes?" she asked.

"Ten," Negan said. "People are a resource."

There was gunfire somewhere on the west side. My arm and leg were throbbing.

"Ten," Jadis relented.

Negan chuckled, then sighed.

"Rick. This is just gonna make you sad. Broken. You're gonna _wish_ you were dead. You too, Oliver. Then again, maybe this'll teach you some damn manners." He jostled my shoulder as he walked around us. I wanted to flinch but I just dipped my head and tried to wish us all away from here.

Negan chuckled.

"I like having fun," he explained, "I do. But maybe you think that the guy that did what he did to your friends... wasn't me, like that was some sort of a put-on, like I'm not the guy with the bat—I'm just the guy that makes your kid spaghetti. I'm the guy who takes a fucking _loogie_ in the face from four-eyes here, and lets him keep his heartbeat."

More gunfire.

"Oh," Negan grinned. "Oh, fuck. Maybe this is on me. Maybe this is _all_ on me. I gotta make it right. I guess I gotta start _all_ over again. I gotta tell you, Rick, if I had a kid, I'd want him to be _just_ like your kid, which makes this _so_ much harder."

I was scared.

Not Carl.

 _Not Carl._

"You're not gonna win," he growled.

"Carl," Negan told him. "It is over. Now, listen, don't take it personally. I don't _wanna_ replace you, but your daddy here's given me no choice, see? So why don't you point your one _ball_ up the street there, and take everything in?"

He did. Carl looked up the street and then he looked at me. He looked at me and I felt so guilty. I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't understand how Negan was making all of this make sense in his head, and then — and then there was this scream in the distance and a dark figure fell from the brownstone roof. I remember just... _staring._ I remember thinking it wasn't happening. I remember thinking this was all just another nightmare; any minute I'd wake up and go sit on Jesus' porch and watch Daryl while he smoked and talked to me about Carol, all pent up and _angrysad_ even though we'd never talk about why.

"Ohh." Negan laughed. He knelt in front of Rick. " _Oh._ Wow. You just lost somebody important to you right now—like, _just_ now. _Fuck._ That. Is. _Timing._ Well, Rick, you chose this. I truly don't know what more I could've done to warn you. And this isn't a warning. This is punishment.

I'm gonna kill Carl now.

I'm gonna make it one, nice, _hard_ swing; try to do it in one because I _like_ him.

I just want you to put that in your brain and roll it around for a minute."

It was in my brain, rolling around— _blitzing_ it. I felt Carl's hand, our two little fingers locked. It was hard to tell who was shaking worse. Negan grinned at this, then turned to Rick and kept talking.

"I'm gonna kill Carl, and then Lucille here, she's gonna take your hands, and _then_ your boy's achey-breaky, handicap, little, boyfriend _Oliver_ is gonna come with me. I'll even let you keep Daryl as fair trade. One of mine for one of yours. How about that?"

"You can do it right in front of me," Rick said. I wasn't listening. Not really. Words were coming in but I didn't understand them right away. "You can take my hands. I told you already—I'm gonna kill you. All of you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but _nothing_ is gonna change that— _nothing_."

And then Rick was whispering.

" _You're all already dead._ "

Negan looked mad. I remember that. He looked like a human grenade. He'd lost his pin... only then, somehow, he just put it back in again.

He giggled.

"Fuck," he sighed. " _Wow, Rick..._ Okay."

Negan got up.

"You said I could do it."

Carl's hat was knocked off his head and I felt it bump my chest as it fell. I saw his face, Carl's, all twisted up and then and then _and then_ I died. And died. And I died. I died for all the times I was going to have to think about this moment. All the million, billion, trillion times for the rest of my life—all the ten seconds I would have left of it because I knew I wasn't going to make this. Not this. I was going to die and keep on dying forever and always and I would never come back from it. And then there was a scream. It lived inside my chest. It was the goblin and it was alive and it was escaping and I was going to die _die **die**_ for it, and I did. I really did. It split me into shards and leapt out of my chest in a roar, landing hard and heavy and orange and black against a Saviors' chest. Teeth sunk into skull and crushed it like an egg. And I was in one piece, not a living roar; the roar hadn't even come from me. It was Shiva. She tore into a Savior's chest and pulled out his ribcage.

Somebody screamed. A lot of people did. Carl staggered against me. It hurt. I thought I was holding him but it was him who was holding me. My arms weren't working. My leg felt like a hurricane inside skin and bone and sinew. Carl gripped around my chest and held me and held me and held me, and we saw soldiers on horseback, galloping and shooting and slashing, and more soldiers ran alongside them. I saw their flags, the tiger symbol sewn into red and gold, and then I saw the King, gun raised and the whole universe alive and electric inside his face and dreadlocks.

"END THESE SAVIORS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES!  
ALEXANDRIA WILL NOT FALL, NOT ON THIS DAY!"

Gunfire split the air apart. People were screaming and running. And then Maggie and Enid and the rest of Hilltop were sprinting through Alexandria.

"Phalanx out, third group, now!" Maggie ordered.

"Move up!" Daryl too. "Now, we got your backs!"

Rick grabbed mine and Carl's collars and pulled us up. I remember the pain. Everywhere. I felt sick. I couldn't hold my gun when Rick shoved it into my hand. I couldn't walk. And then Shiva flew past me and Carl, and Rick yelled for us.

They were shooting. Carl and Rick. And they were grabbing under my arms to keep me standing and I kept making these noises, "No, no, no," begging them to stop the hurting. I remember that I saw something purple streak through the day-sky, and then the streets filled with smoke and the Junkies were running away. The Saviors too. Gunshots were still cracking the air open, and then I was dragged to the RV. Maggie was there. Jesus and Enid and Bertie, too. Shit, I could hardly stay conscious. Rick and Carl were clutching around my middle so hard I couldn't breathe. My head felt like rock in water, _sinking_.

"They're falling back!" Rick told us.

"Oliver..." Enid said. "Oliver your... You're..."

I tried to say I was fine but I threw up right there in front of everybody. Carl yelped for his Dad, who had let go of me to check around the side of the RV. Rick rushed over and took under my arm again and I threw up all down his shirt.

"M'sorry," I murmured.

Rick just held me. He held me like that day in the slaughterhouse, like I was really little and young and scared. I wanted to hide in his chest and stay there until the hurting went away.

"Dad," Carl said, and I think I must've said it too because Rick looked at me, then he looked at Carl because he was still talking. "Dad, we gotta get him to the clinic." Carl was talking fast and Rick was talking back faster, and my brain was pounding so it was hard to understand much else.

Maggie was yelling things, and then she and the others were gone again. The King was shouting somewhere in the distance. "Now! We finish this!" And then there was more shooting. God, I wished they would let go of me. I wished they would just leave me there. I didn't have it in me to go any further. But I felt Rick and Carl's hands grabbing and pulling and even though I would cry out and try to give up, they wouldn't let me. I heard Rick talking about Michonne, and then we were at the brownstone apartments. There was a body splattered across the sidewalk and horror woke me up for a second...only it wasn't Michonne. _It wasn't Michonne._ It was another Junkie.

We went inside.

I couldn't make it up the staircase so I sat on the steps while Rick and Carl hurried up to find her. I heard Rick's voice, all quiet and shaken: "Michonne," he said, "Michonne. Oh, you're alive." And her voice back: "We—W-We're... We're..." "I know. I know. I know. We are. We will."

I knew I was dying then.

I just knew it.

Carl came downstairs first. I don't remember a lot of what he said or a lot of what happened after but I know I felt heavy and cold. I remember that he was saying my name and that it was hard to say his name back. I was sweating and bleeding and hurting. I remember Michonne's face, at some point. It was bloody and bruised and her left eye was swollen shut. Rick was holding her, and he was also trying to hold me too, and then I fell and the whole world was falling away from me as well, and I was becoming lost all over again.

I didn't like that feeling.

I didn't like it and I couldn't stop it.

So, I lost.

Lost,  
...and lost,  
...and lost.

❂:❂:❂:❂  
 _'Cause it's a long life  
and then it isn't._  
❂:❂:❂:❂

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _Guillotine_ by Jon Bellion. Thanks _ando aka Andy Tweed._

Happy reading.


	54. A Lost Boy

Dear **Hongo En  
** and **AGGXX5  
** and **RHatch89**  
and **FriendlyNeighborhoodHufflepuff**  
and **DampishPoet**

aha heh... :")

* * *

 _Left my home still as a child  
I walked a thousand sorry miles  
To wait for my father, to gather up his tools_

 _He said, "My boy, you've gotta run,  
Don't wait for me, don't wait for mum,  
We'll come get you, when it's safe for us to move"_

 _So I waited many years  
Held back the pain behind my tears  
For my father, to come find me like he said_

 _And in that time I was alone  
So many years without my home  
I made brothers of a different kind instead..._

* * *

 **~Carl~**

* * *

I knelt in the grass and placed the small, un-neat bouquet of wild flowers down on the grave in front of me.

"There," I whispered, "promise kept."

Enid was standing behind me.

"Think he'll like them?" I asked her.

"Yeah," she said softly. "I think he will."

I stood and stepped back from the grave, sighing and nodding. Enid took my hand.

"Come on," she whispered.

"Where are we going?"

She smiled at me.

"Nowhere."

* * *

 **~Oliver~**

* * *

When I was really little, Patrick told me that when we died, we'd either go to Heaven or Hell—this all _before_ he became a Practicing Atheist. "Mamma told me," he said. He said we'd walk up a big flight of golden stairs to some tall pearly gates and God and one of his angels would ask us questions, and then they'd either send us to Hell or allow us through into Heaven.

"I don't want to go to Hell," I'd told him. And I cried.

"You won't," he'd said. "Hell's for bad people. Mamma said we're good. So we'll get to go to Heaven."

I never knew if I believed it. Not really. Or if I did, I was afraid of it. I didn't know if I was a good person. I didn't know if God and his angel would let me into Heaven. But I liked to imagine that when I died, I'd wind up somewhere I knew, at least, somewhere I felt safe, and the people I loved would be there to make me feel better. I figured the universe could spare me that much. Yeah. I figured that would be enough. But another part of me thought that was stupid. Another part of me thought that when you died, there wouldn't be anything at all, you'd just... _not_ anymore.

I figured that was what was happening to me, except I was thinking about it, and something about that and being dead didn't make much sense, so I decided to try opening my eyes, and that's how I wound up waking up at the clinic.

Morgan was there. And Rosita, asleep in the hospital bed opposite me. I saw my prosthetic over on my bedside. Something was attached to my arm though, so I looked, saw a sling. My leg, too, was raised by a bigger sling above the bed, wrapped in bandage and what looked like home-made cast. Things were written on it but everything was blurry so I couldn't read. My head felt light and heavy and achy at the same time.

Someone said, "Shh," and then pushed something over my face, my glasses, and I could see better. Carol was leaning over me, placing her palm against my forehead and coaxing me to lie back again.

I looked and looked at her and then I was crying. I wasn't sure why at first, only I was. There were so many reasons to cry. But out of them all I decided on one and said, "Where's Sasha?"

"In the ground," Morgan answered. "Held her funeral two days ago."

I blinked and wiped my face.

Morgan had his hands clasped and his elbows rested next to me on the mattress. Nobody was saying anything, so I said, "Where is everybody?"

Morgan smiled and said, "Around."

I took his word for it. It was easy to take Morgan's word for things. I looked at what he was wearing.

"Ben give you his armour?" I asked.

Morgan's face did this weird falling thing then.

"Something like that, yeah," he said, almost breathing it.

I smirked and looked around, "Where is he? I gotta give back some stuff." Only I stopped talking when Morgan put his head in his hands. I just looked at him for a really long time. It felt like centuries. And then, after all those centuries, I just said, "Oh. Okay."

I looked at my hand, and then across to my sling, my cast-up leg, things written on it like:

 _'hi, from enid'_

 _'C.J. GRIMES WAS HERE'_

 _'Get well soon little dude.  
Love from Jerry xx'_

 _'I Wish You A Swift Return To Full Health, Young Warrior.  
– K.E  
(& S xx) __ß_ _My Apologies. Jerry Wrote That.'_

 _'Tara loves you like yoyos and strawberry sundaes'_

 _'FROM A FRIEND, aka. Aaron and Eric'_

 _'Michonne xo  
AND RICK'_

 _'Praying for your recovery – F G'_

I felt my face frown and flush. It's strange, the things that run through your head when you realise that someone you care about is dead. You'd think the first thing you feel is sad, and I guess it's true, but it's other things too like confusion and anger, almost at them sometimes—I don't know why. I was trying to think of all the reasons Ben couldn't die. I made a list in my head:

1\. I told him I'd see him around.  
2\. I had to give him back his tin.  
3\. I had to show him my home.  
4\. And I had to thank him for everything he didn't even know he'd done for me.

But none of that was going to happen, and I was disgusted.

"Was the Saviors," Morgan explained. "Day after you left." I don't remember a lot of what else he said, something about a cantaloupe and that Richard was dead too and that Benjamin's death was what changed Ezekiel's mind about helping us fight, and then after a while, Morgan was quiet.

I thought about how Benjamin meant a lot to him, how he meant a lot to me, and for similar reasons. Ben reminded us of our family, the family that died when we weren't there to do something to stop it. I just don't think Morgan and I were very good at being reminded of our family.

I felt all out of shape, like Ray said, and then I started to cry again—to really really _cry_. I thought the noise was something outside the room, like Shiva, but then I realised it had to have been me because I could hardly breathe.

I held my face and wailed.

Morgan just touched my wrist and said, "I know, shh. I know, I know," until I stopped.

Carol was still sitting beside me on the chair. I could have asked her why she came back, why she wasn't running anymore too, but I didn't say anything. She didn't either. Instead, as I laid down and tried to sleep, she just combed her fingers through my hair, like she would, and I let her.

* * *

Later in the evening, the sun was starting to fall asleep all pink and purple and blue across Alexandria's sky.

My body was weak and my head and arm ached, but mostly my leg just hurt from walking all the way to the graveyard. Although it was bearable with the meds and Carl and Enid supporting me.

They'd put flowers on Mikey's grave for me. And Carl found me a beanie hat, a grey one almost identical to my old one—said he took it off some dead Savior. Enid had her knife back, too—said she took it off the same dead Savior.

The three of us went home. We sat out on the porch. I sat in the rocking chair while Carl and Enid sat over on the steps. Enid was playing with an uninflated green balloon between her fingers. We talked about the meeting in Alexandria that'd taken place the evening of the fight. Ezekiel, Rick and Maggie had all spoken, representing the Kingdom, Alexandria, and Hilltop.

"Things are going to change," Enid said. Her voice was soft, like the breeze. "Nobody really knows what's going to happen anymore. Then again, nobody really knew before."

"We're gonna fight," Carl mumbled. "We know that much."

"Yeah..."

"But that won't be it," I said to them. "I mean, it's gonna suck. And we'll lose people, but you said it before, right? Nobody's ever really gone. Not if they live on inside you."

I got up. Carl asked if I needed help but I shook my head while I hobbled over and sat with them carefully, and together we looked out at the community for a minute.

"We'll fight," I said, like I was admitting it. "But do you know what else?"

They both looked at me.

I smiled. "We're going to win."

We didn't talk much more after that. Enid just put her head on Carl's shoulder and Carl took my hand. And after everything, lost boy or not, I knew then that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

* * *

 **Notes**

Song was _The Lost Boy_ by Sons of Anarchy.

Thank you infinitely for sticking through this bullshit.

 **New book up now, available in my profile.**

As always,  
Happy reading.


End file.
